Vettel relegated to fifth place

Sebastian Vettel has been demoted to fifth place in the German GP after it was ruled he was in the wrong when overtaking Jenson Button late on.

Red Bull's Vettel, having lost second place to Button through the final round of pit stops, attacked his McLaren rival going into the closing laps and on lap 66, with his DRS overtaking device engaged, went for the pass into the turn six hairpin.

With Button defending the inside line, Vettel attempted to outbreak the McLaren around the outside, and although his rival held the inside line, the German accelerated out of the corner across the run-off apron to gain the position.

The stewards immediately put the incident under investigation and over his team radio Button was heard pointing out that Vettel had overtaken him from off the track. Vettel and Red Bull, however, took a different view with the World Champion telling Button in the podium holding area that he had gone wide as he was unsure if he had still been on his inside.

But after nearly two hours of deliberations, stewards ruled that Vettel had been in the wrong and imposed a 20-second time penalty on him, dropping him from second place to fifth on the timesheet.

Button is therefore promoted to second place with Lotus's Kimi Raikkonen to the final podium position and Kamui Kobayashi to fourth for Sauber.

Speaking to Sky Sports F1 while the investigation into the incident was still ongoing, Red Bull Team Principal Christian Horner had suggested Vettel had been ahead by the time he went off the track and Button had forced him wide.

"He goes to the outside. Gets clearly ahead and then Jenson runs him out wide and over the kerb. So I think it is unfair to say he got an unfair advantage from that, it was a racing incident," he said.

"If you slow the camera down to the point that Sebastian leave the track you will see clearly that he is ahead.

"Jenson is actually wheel spinning out of the corner, he has no grip. Sebastian has jinked around him. I think it would be very harsh to penalise him."