Cucumber Karthikeyan penalized for contact with Vettel

Following a stewards’ inquiry, Narain Karthikeyan has been punished for the incident which resulted in Sebastian Vettel’s puncture during the Malaysian Grand Prix.

On Lap 47 of 56, the World Champion was lapping the HRT when his left-rear wheel clipped its front wing, resulting in a puncture; this dropped the Red Bull out of the points. Vettel also suffered radio problems.

"Most crucially we lost radio communication and that makes it very difficult in these conditions to know what’s going on," he explained. "Nonetheless, we did our maximum today and got up to fourth. To then lose the race how I did is very frustrating. Some people need to look more where they are going."

Karthikeyan is handed a drive-through penalty, which translates to a post-race time addition of 20 seconds; as a result, he drops to 22nd place behind team-mate Pedro de la Rosa. During the race, the Indian was also hit by Jenson Button, although the McLaren driver has accepted full responsibility for the incident.