22/06/2019
NEWS STORY
In all honesty, despite the talk of "overwhelming" new evidence few outside Maranello really believed that Ferrari would be successful in its bid to have Sebastian Vettel's Montreal penalty overturned.
Indeed, when the stewards announced their decision, having rejected the move to have the penalty reviewed, most of the talk was of the underwhelming evidence the Italian team had offered, including an analysis of the incident by Karun Chandhok, which, if nothing else will add to his growing list of anecdotes... "I remember the time Ferrari used my analysis..."
Speaking at the end of a day which saw him fail to get the Canada result overturned and finish 0.7s down on Valtteri Bottas in practice, Vettel was in no doubt where the blame lies.
"Everybody is to blame," he told reporters. "The problem is we are hurt with these things," he continued. "I think they started a long time ago, did he cross the white line, or use too much kerb? Let us do what we want.
"If you are unhappy with how we race and how we drive then build different tracks, it's as easy as that," he added. "We have car parks with lines and kerbs on it.
"Anyways, it is what it is and as I said there are too many paragraphs but what do you change? I hope they just burn the papers."
Asked what he would do in respect of the failure to have the decision overturned, he grinned: "Retire!?" he said.
"At least I know I'm not in trouble again. I'm joking. I don't really care."
However, asked about the new parts on the Ferrari, including a new front wing, rear wing and brake ducts, the smile faded.
"Not so good, to be honest, a lot of work ahead of us," he admitted. "They didn't bring what we were expecting," he admitted, "so we'll see what we can try and find overnight, to maybe be a bit better off tomorrow."
Check out our Saturday gallery from Le Castellet, here.