Sebastian Vettel defends Lewis Hamilton over Max Verstappen d******* comment – WATCH
SEBASTIAN VETTEL has defended Lewis Hamilton over his alleged comments about Max Verstappen.
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Hamilton and Verstappen touched in the early stages of the Bahrain Grand Prix and the contact resulted in the Red Bull driver suffering a puncture to his rear left tyre.
Dutchman Verstappen was able to limp back to the pits to replace the tyre however, Red Bull we’re forced to retire the car shortly after as a result of the damage caused in the collision.
And Verstappen was quick to lay blame on Mercedes man Hamilton.
“He [Hamilton] drove into my rear tyre,” the 20-year-old said.
“I had not suffered anything like this in my entire career.
“It seems unfair to me that the Commissioners have not punished him.”
However, after finishing third behind Ferrari’s Vettel and Mercedes team-mate Valtteri Bottas, Hamilton reportedly called Verstappen a d******* while watching a replay of the incident after the race.
But when asked about the comments in the drivers post-race press conference, Vettel quickly jumped to Hamilton’s defence.
“I think it’s not fair… I mean, I don’t know what Lewis did,” he said.
“We’ve all been in that situation, we fight someone, we go sometimes wheel-to-wheel, it’s close and you have a lot of adrenalin going, do you think comparing to football, if you have a microphone on a football player’s mouth, that everything he says is something nice and is a nice message when the guy tackles him and maybe sometimes he fouls him or not.
“So I don’t think it’s justified to give us these kind of s**t questions and making up a story out of nothing, if we are just racing and we are full of adrenalin and sometime we say these things.
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“I mean if I hit you in your face, you’re not going to say ‘oh, Sebastian, that wasn’t nice’. It’s a human reaction.
“Sometimes I feel it’s all a bit blown up and artificial if we have these questions, trying to make a story out of nothing.
“So, it’s not personal, don’t take it personal. So I think we should cut it right there, so now if Lewis can answer.”
Hamilton went on to say that he did not recall what was said.
“Honestly, I don’t really remember it,” he said. “I think maybe it was when we were talking afterwards?
“Ultimately, I had a coming together with Max and it was an unnecessary collision.
“There needs to be a certain respect between drivers and ultimately… maybe I need to go and watch the manoeuvre again, but it didn’t feel like a respectful manoeuvre, but ultimately it was a silly manoeuvre for himself, because he didn’t finish the race.
“And obviously he’s tending to make quite a few mistakes recently, so it was just unnecessary for him to do that.
“I can't really remember at what stage of the race it was or why we were even in that position, but yeah, I don’t really care to be honest.”