Vettel was constantly prone to lose focuses to Hamilton at this race; the Mercedes rushed to expect whatever else, particularly once the Briton had put it on post.
Bottas was miserable – he truly isn’t having the rub of the green so far this season.
With respect to Hamilton, maybe his remarks were shaded by a year ago’s Azerbaijan Grand Prix, when Vettel had his notorious ‘red-fog’ minute and intentionally crashed into Hamilton in light of incorrectly thinking the Briton had ‘brake-tried’ him.
Vettel was allowed a 10-second unpredictable punishment for that. Hamilton ought to have won, but since his headrest came free and he needed to pit to have it anchored, he wound up a place behind Vettel.
In any case, Vettel still would have completed on the platform had it not been for the occurrence on the principal lap that characterized the race.
The German, as so frequently, got an incredible begin from third on the grid, and was immediately tucked up directly behind Hamilton, and close by the sister Mercedes of Valtteri Bottas, on the rushed to the principal corner. And afterward everything turned out badly. “It was my mistake,” Vettel said. “I tried to brake early and get out of it because I had nowhere to go, but I had no room. When you are so close to a car ahead and also the car next to you, you lose… it felt like all the grip. With hindsight, I would like to have had a worse start because then it is clear for Turn One. But I was a bit squeezed, couldn’t really go anywhere, lost the car, it snapped and I had to make contact with Valtteri, which is a shame for him, he did nothing wrong. It was a chain reaction. At least we both could continue but it was not the race we wanted.”
He added: “You shouldn’t be able to take someone out and then finish ahead of them and kind of get away with it. If it was me, if I was Sebastian, I would feel: ‘Jeez, I got away with that.’ And if I was Valtteri, I would be very unhappy right now.”
Despite the fact that in a solid position, and quickly into second in front of Bottas, Vettel understood that he was caught, and attempted to retreat from it. In any case, he lost control and spun into the Finn’s car, harming both, compelling them into the pits and entrusting them to a battle back through the field.
