14/07/2019
NEWS STORY
A British Grand Prix that already had fans on the edges of their seats took a further twist on the 37th lap, when, moments after being passed by Max Verstappen, Sebastian Vettel locked-up and clattered into the back of the Red Bull at Vale, momentarily causing it to leave the ground.
Though convinced he had suffered major damage, Verstappen was assured his car was fine, while Vettel had to pit for a new front wing.
"What was he doing," asked Vettel over the radio.
"What the ****," commented Verstappen
Though assured the car was fine, from then on it was about holding position for Verstappen, who eventually finished fifth.
In the moments after the race, Vettel went to Verstappen, who was still in his car, and apologised, the pair shaking hands.
"It was my mistake," Vettel subsequently told reporters. "He passed me into Stowe and he ran a bit wide which gave me the chance to come back.
"Then I thought, it looked for a second that he was going to the right and there would be a gap on the left which I was hoping to go in for, but it didn't open and by that time it was already too late and I was too close and I crashed."
Sadly, the incident is a long line of mistakes the German has made over the last year, his calamitous sequence of mishaps beginning in Germany last year, just two weeks after claiming victory at Silverstone.
"Today was really good, I was really happy," said the German. "There were some important moments in the beginning of the race and then we benefited from the safety car to pass the three cars in front.
"It was quite tight between us and Red Bull and I think Max was a bit quicker than us today in the first stint and also in the end of the race. Probably we should have finished fourth but we didn't. I didn't, so I can't be happy with that."
"I guess he misjudged his braking," said Verstappen, "but I already spoke to him, he apologised to me immediately out of the car, and that's it.
"It's disappointing," he added, "but you can't change it now."
"The power steering more or less failed," the Dutchman revealed, "so it was quite a hard work-out for me out there. The seat also popped up so it was moving around a lot. The diffuser was broken, the floor was broken, underneath I could see parts falling off. It was not great.
"The car was not what it should've been, so I’m happy to be fifth."
Shortly after the incident, the stewards deemed that Vettel was "wholly to blame" and handed him a 10s time penalty along with 2 penalty points, bringing his total to 6.
Check out our Sunday gallery from Silverstone, here.