10/10/2013
NEWS STORY
In the wake of comments made by Lewis Hamilton earlier in the week regarding his dominance of the sport, Sebastian Vettel argues that countryman Michael Schumacher was more dominant during his era.
Though he subsequently took to Twitter to heap praise on the three-time World Champion, Hamilton had previously claimed that Vettel's dominance of the sport is sleep inducing and likely to turn fans away.
"Personally I feel for the fans," said the Mercedes driver, "because I remember the period of time when Michael Schumacher was winning. I remember waking up in the morning to watch the start of the race and then going to sleep, and then waking up when it ended because I already knew what would happen. I am pretty sure a lot of people were doing that today, at least in my family there is."
Asked about the comment today, Vettel played down the comparison. "I think it's very different. I think there's probably one race which was a bit of an exception. If you take Singapore, the gaps we had and were able to build up were incredible, to lap two seconds quicker than the cars behind us, but obviously it depends on who was behind us at the time and which tyres (they had) and so on, but anyways, what I want to say is that if you take Korea which I think is more similar to Spa, the gap was something between three and six seconds for the whole race.
"If you look at ten years ago, it was more like thirty to sixty seconds which is a big difference," he added. "Don't get me wrong, it's a nice cushion to have in the car, when you see that you're three seconds down the road, but equally you know that if you make one stupid mistake - in Korea, for example, a lock-up which was very likely and three seconds is nothing compared to thirty or sixty."
Initially, when asked about Hamilton's comments, Vettel appeared to only be aware of the Englishman's subsequent remark, when he heaped praise upon him, to which the German said: "It's very nice to hear something like that. I think I can only give it back.
"There is respect amongst the drivers, obviously there's a lot of stuff that gets written and said but I think that the most important thing is when you go up to another driver, whether you feel respected or not and I think that is the case. I think Lewis is one of the best drivers currently in Formula One. I get along quite well with him lately so I can only say 'thank you very much' and give it back."
Maybe now he knows what Hamilton really said, and knowing Vettel's keen sense of humour, perhaps "give it back" will take a whole new meaning. Better stay awake Lewis!
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