With five races of the calendar year already done and dusted, the Formula One world championship is slowly gathering pace with Lewis Hamilton and Sebastian Vettel again going head-to-head as Mercedes and Ferrari compete for the highest honours.

As Hamilton further widened his gap at the top to 17 points with victory at the Spanish GP, Vettel has now failed to secure a podium finish in the last three outings, despite initially starting the season in phenomenal form.

Shortly after the conclusion of the race in Barcelona this weekend, the German ace made a startling remark about the Virtual Safety Car and has claimed some drivers and teams are ‘abusing’ a loophole in the rules to their advantage.

He, himself, suffered during the race on Sunday as he pitted behind the VSC, a gamble which massively backfired as he fell from second to fourth.

Vettel was held up during his stop as he had to wait for Force India’s Sergio Perez to make his way down the pit lane and avoid an unsafe release, leaving him stationary for almost five precious seconds.

But the German was more unhappy by the fact his rivals are able to drive quicker under VSC conditions than they should be.

“It’s the same for everyone but the FIA is supplying us with a system that makes us follow a delta time, and everybody has to slow down by, I think, 40 percent, but I think everybody’s aware you can have a faster way to go under VSC than just follow the delta – by saving distance," he said, per Planet F1.

“So, I think we should have a system that hasn’t got this loophole, because it forces us to drive ridiculous lines around the track and everybody’s doing it so I don’t think it’s a secret.

“Our sport should be in a better shape than supplying software that’s just poor and allows us to find some extra performance that way.”

However, FIA race director Charlie Whiting completely disagrees with the Ferrari star and explained how the whole process works out on the track during a Safety Car period.

“I don’t know what he’s talking about, honestly. The VSC has a map in the ECU which is 30 percent slower than a quick lap. Drivers have to follow that lap,” he continued.

“It’s measured every 50m of travel along the track. It measures where it is relevant to the reference lap and gives you a plus or minus. Every 50m they are reminded if they are above or below.

“They are allowed to go negative [quicker than the reference time] but as long as they are positive once in each marshalling sector and at the Safety Car 1 line.

“Even if someone does go slow, as long as they get to zero by that point it doesn’t matter. If it’s measured every 50m then any advantage you can get for taking a different line on the track is going to be absolutely minimal.”

However, the 66-year-old admitted to be open to the prospect of inspecting any sort of evidence from either Vettel or Ferrari, of any misuse of the system by drivers.

He added: “I can sort of see what he’s saying, but the racing line is the optimal one.

“If they have some evidence of this we’ll obviously have to have a look and see if it can be manipulated."

“But from what we can see over the course of a lap and a half, or whatever it was, as long as they’re zero at the VSC ending point then I don’t think any advantage can be gained,” Whiting concluded.