Categories: F1 News, Reports and Race ResultsRed Bull Racing

Webber reveals lack of 'Multi 21' punishment for Vettel

Mark Webber has revealed Sebastian Vettel involved lawyers to ensure he wasn't punished for the 'Multi 21' incident at Red Bull.

During the 2013 Malaysian Grand Prix, Vettel ignored a team order from Red Bull not to overtake Webber and duly passed his team-mate to take victory. Team principal Christian Horner could be heard warning Vettel on team radio but the matter was dealt with internally and the German later admitted he was not punished.

Writing in his new book - Aussie Grit - which has been released in Australia, Webber says legal involvement prevented Red Bull from taking action.

“When Ann [Neal, Webber’s partner] later pressed [Horner] about why the team had never reprimanded Seb or issued any punishment for the ‘Multi 21’ incident, he admitted that the team had received a two-page letter from Seb’s lawyer a few days after the Malaysian race stating that they were in breach of his contract by giving him an ‘unreasonable instruction/team order’,” Webber wrote.

“Whatever [Vettel’s] thinking was, when he overtook me I wasn’t so much angry as very sad that the team had reached this sorry state.”

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Andrew Lewin

Andrew first became a fan of Formula 1 during the time when Michael Schumacher and Damon Hill were stepping into the limelight after the era of Alain Prost, Nigel Mansell and Aryton Senna. He's been addicted ever since, and has been writing about the sport now for nearly a quarter of a century for a number of online news sites. He's also written professionally about GP2 (now Formula 2), GP3, IndyCar, World Rally Championship, MotoGP and NASCAR. In his other professional life, Andrew is a freelance writer, social media consultant, web developer/programmer, and digital specialist in the fields of accessibility, usability, IA, online communities and public sector procurement. He worked for many years in magazine production at Bauer Media, and for over a decade he was part of the digital media team at the UK government's communications department. Born and raised in Essex, Andrew currently lives and works in south-west London.