Apparently there was some sort of incident between Lewis Hamilton and Sebastian Vettel during the Azerbaijan Grand Prix and neither driver is happy about it.
Stewards found that the Ferrari driver was pretty much entirely to blame for what happened and although Vettel strongly disagrees with their verdict, he did say that he wants to to speak to Lewis and clear the air once things have died down a bit. He said:
“I don’t have a problem with him, I respect him a lot for the driver he is. I don’t think that [damaging my wing] was his intention because he’s also risking damage to his car, and his race is over. Now is not the right time to talk. I’ll do that just with him and clear it and move on. Maybe I’m not clever enough but I’m not complicated. I’m willing to sort it out with him, I don’t think there’s much to sort out.”
However when Lewis heard that Vettel wants to speak to him he completely poopooed the suggestion, saying that he has no interest in speaking to someone who he now sees as disrespectful. Instead he just wants to put it all behind him and get on with the rest of the season.
“Firstly he doesn’t have my number. For me I’m just going to do my talking on the track, that’s most important for me. I’ve heard of what he’s said after the race and it seems kind of…because I’ve not come out of the race pointing the finger or said anything, it is what it is. It happened, I don’t think it was right but the biggest thing for me was that I lost the race through the headrest issue. All I’m thinking of is, get my head together. I want to kill it the next 12 races to go. I want to win the next 12 races.”
He went on to say that Vettel’s reaction to the initial contact was the wrong way of going about things and that it could be a bad influence on young drivers coming up through the ranks.
“I need some time to reflect on it all, but I think ultimately what happened was disrespectful. If I had had any ill intent in terms of my driving towards him, brake testing whatever it may be, I still think it’s not deserving of that kind of reaction from someone…that person you do have respect for and always showed it on the track. There’s a lot of kids, every other class and category there’s kids on TV watching us and to see a multi multi world champion who you think would behave better than that. That’s the kind of thing you see in go-karts which you learn from not doing in karts. I hope that kids don’t see that in GP2 and GP3 and think that’s the right way.
One of Vettel’s excuses for his wheel-banging incident was that he momentarily lost control of the car whilst he was busy waving angrily at Lewis. Considering the low speed at which the contact happened at it’s a bizarre claim for one of the best drivers in the world to make, and it’s an excuse Hamilton flat-out refused to believe. He said:
“We’re world champions, we’re the best drivers in the world. Maybe if you’re going down the road in your road car and you put your hand out the window and you do this, you might swerve to the right. But we don’t do that. We’ve been racing for years, you just don’t do that.”
These two are never going to sort this out, are they?
