As Pirelli suggests 'clear the air' talks, Sebastian Vettel has leapt to the defence of his team and its race strategy.

In a brief statement on his website, the four-time world champion said:

"Just to make things clear: The team and I decided our strategy for the race together. I support the team and the team supports me. And this is what makes us a team.

"Our strategy was never risky, at any point. The team is not to blame," he added.

"We deserved to finish on the podium but that’s racing; a different thing though is not to finish the race because of what happened. I think this is not easy to accept for a driver, even if it’s not as bad as in Silverstone few years ago, but still we need to talk to each other as it can’t happen without prior notice."

Which sets things up nicely for next week when Paul Hembery hopes to hold a 'clear the air' discussion at Monza, both Ferrari's and Pirelli's home race, and where the tifosi will be expecting to see their team deliver a result.

Pirelli continues to insist that it was the team's strategy, rather than a fault in its tyres, which was to blame for Vettel's penultimate lap failure.

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READERS COMMENTS

1. Posted by AlbertoDietz, 30/08/2015 0:14

"Nickle-and-diming it is and only a fool or a fraud would deny it. The consequence is crap tyres by Pirelli on Bernie's orders as F One noticed."

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2. Posted by Pavlo, 28/08/2015 23:28

"Btw, just answering the question: yes, the winning team had the same tyre, and the same failure too ;)"

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3. Posted by Pavlo, 28/08/2015 23:25

"On the contrary I completely agree with Vettel and Ferrari. Not because I think they did everything right, but because of this: "Pirelli continues to insist that it was the team's strategy". I completely agree with scf1fan that any part of high performance F1 car may fail, but according to Pirelli the situation is different - they delivered a tyre that performs absolutely fine after so many laps but suddenly explodes, and they insist this is absolutely correct behaviour of the tyre. Not an exceptional failure, but absolutely expected given the team's strategy. This is never the case with gearbox or PU, they fail because mistakes happen, but not because they are designed to fail. Renault is not saying that it's not their fault that engine broke.
Just imagine that tyre blowing 200 meters before and Sebastian ending in the wall. Had it happen, would we still have the same discussion, or would you expect the change in rules already published? As per my understanding, the correct behaviour of a tyre is what happen in Canada - when it gets very slow first. After they are forced to make a bad tyre I am really ashamed to have Pirelli on my car - I don't really see what do they get from F1 in terms of marketing."

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4. Posted by Sinnr, 28/08/2015 11:50

"I must be the only one that thinks the tyre problem Vettel had in the race wasn't that bad at all. Ferrari took a gamble and lost, simple as that. It's not as though they, Ferrari, were using the Pirelli tyres for the first time. All the whining by both driver and team is laughable. They must've known that the tyres were probably not going to do that many laps. Didn't they use said tyres in practice?
I don't fault Pirelli at all. even if they said that they would complete 40 laps. Ferrari must have known that track condition, track limits and other unseen factors would be at play, so why take that chance. Third was there for the taking with another stop, but they GAMBLED and lost. Suck it up and move on. "

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5. Posted by scf1fan, 27/08/2015 15:00

"I have to say that I somewhat disagree with most of the sentiments expressed here so far . . . . The one thing I would add, is that, like many of the components in F1, they are essentially hand made. Hand made items tend to have greater variations in manufacturing quality than "machine" made items. But regardless, no matter how many quality checks a component goes through, there is ALWAYS the possibility of a pre-mature failure; hand made or mass produced. Always! It happens . . . Will SV make the same comments if the gearbox, or one of the PU components packs up before it's rated service? I suspect not. So, although I have sympathies for SV's plight, a failure like he suffered is just part of the racing game. (And this does not absolve SV or Ferrari from possibly having done something which might have compromised the integrity of the tire! Nor do I think Pirelli should be able to pad their security by laying on undue amounts of safety factor.) I also don't remember SV being very contrite when he cost his team points by his failures . . . Just ask M.Webber. (Didn't the winning team have the same tires too?? ;-)"

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6. Posted by F One, 27/08/2015 12:57

"Does no one understand that Bernie mandates that Pirelli make artificially crap tires on purpose?"

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7. Posted by BrightonCorgi, 27/08/2015 3:36

"Time to bring back Bridgestone or at least more than one tire manufacturer. "

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8. Posted by AlbertoDietz, 26/08/2015 22:32

"Quite the contrary. Vettel racing a Ferrari is the real deal, whereas Pirelli as a tyre supplier sucks big time."

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9. Posted by F One, 26/08/2015 17:35

"Yeah yeah boob hoo Vettel you and the team got it wrong. Suck it up."

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Vettel leaps to defence of Ferrari

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