Johnston wrote:
The YT video had the green flag partially hidden by the graphics plus it wasn't exactly high res.
As for doctored footage on YT and going on it. To me that is a reason to query it. They could say "Oh look it was green" when in reality the footage could be doctored to make it look green. Especially when one of the FIA readouts which has been posted shown the whole lot to be a yellow zone. We don't know where the YT poster that missed the green got his footage. I know we are going on conspiracy tin hat territory but thats one of the reasons it should be checked.
The only people to have access to full Res undoctored image with no graphics is the FIA and FOM. Hence going to the FIA for a clarification to have the original image looked at. It's called due diligence.
AND remember it was just a clarification asked for, not a full protest of the result. It's not as if RBR haven't asked for clarifications this year against competitor teams

Well, they couldn't protest the result. To do that they had to lodge one within 30 minutes of the end of the race, which had passed, so their only option was to query the FIA.
My position on this is that there should have been a rigorous analysis done of the
youtube video before Ferrari went to the FIA for clarification. And only if the matter was still in doubt was a clarification request justified. Otherwise it's opening the door to protests and queries being made on dodgy videos.
Therefore one of two things happened. Either Ferrari didn't rigorously examine the footage themselves, which is poor OR they did rigorously examine it and still believed they had some foundation for querying the matter, which I find very difficult to swallow given they would have had access to a lot more footage and information than was just available to us. The youtube video was Vettel's onboard from the race, which was available on several broadcasts and is also published online at a few (secret) sites in high resolution.
On the issue of the FIA map showing the segment yellow, Ferrari would know that this relates to the electronic map being connected to the lights not the Marshall post and if they didn't know that then I come back to the fact that they'd have to be completely incompetent because that has been the system for several years.