Sebastian Vettel has not hesitated to point a finger at title rival Lewis Hamilton after the Ferrari driver spun on the opening lap of the Italian Grand Prix while duelling with the Mercedes driver.
The pair entered the second Variante della Roggia side-by-side, Vettel on the inside for the first sharp right turn of the chicane, but Hamilton kept on the inside for the tight left which gave him the advantage.
At the same time, Vettel with enough room nevertheless had to turn sharp left and as a result the Ferrari pirouetted before stopping on track and facing the oncoming field. The German rejoined last and after a pitstop was on a mission to limit the damage.
He stormed through the field, despite complaining about the balance and in the end did well to finish fourth, but told reporters afterwards that Hamilton was to blame for his lap one spin, “I think you had more angles than I had but I tried to pass Kimi and then he put on the brakes and then I didn’t really have a gap and I didn’t want to try something silly.”
“So then I left a gap and Lewis obviously saw a little bit around the outside but then he didn’t leave me any space. I had no other chance than to run into him and make contact. I tried to get out of there but I couldn’t.”
“Unfortunately, I was the one that spun around, which was a bit ironic but was that way. Then things are not looking too peachy but from there we drove well and tried to recover and we still got a lot of points, so it could have been much worse today,” added Vettel who now trails Hamilton by 30 points in the standings with seven rounds remaining.
Vettel 💥 Hamilton
Discuss… #ItalianGP 🇮🇹 #F1 pic.twitter.com/XFAMIaNyEh
— Formula 1 (@F1) September 2, 2018