Ferrari's Sebastian Vettel has 'moved on' from carnage he caused at Singapore Grand Prix

AFP/Getty Images
Matt Majendie @mattmajendie28 September 2017

Sebastian Vettel has dismissed his role in the first-lap crash that caused chaos in the Singapore Grand Prix “as part of racing”.

The German Ferrari driver was hauled before the stewards over the incident 11 days ago in which he veered across the track after a poor start and collided with team-mate Kimi Raikkonen and Red Bull’s Max Verstappen.

It ended the race of all three but the stewards decided not to take any action, with Vettel saying it was wrong to apportion any blame. “With a collision like that, after the race when we had to face the stewards, what can you do?” he said in the build-up to this weekend’s Malaysian Grand Prix.

“The lights went off, everyone was trying to do their start. It ended up pretty bad for all three of us, there’s not much you can do. I think it’s part of racing. It’s not the first time I’ve been in a situation like this and it won’t be the last time.

Getty Images

“There’s not much point trying to look at them again and again. I don’t think there’s much assessment necessary. All three of us were not happy but we move on.”

Vettel’s main title rival, Lewis Hamilton, who had struggled all weekend, benefited from the incident to take a surprise victory and move ahead of the German into a 28-point lead in the championship.

But four-times world champion Vettel insisted he would not dwell on what had happened.

“If we have a major problem with the car or I’ve done a major mistake, then it’s a different story,” he said. “You have to react to make sure it doesn’t happen again.

“But this is just one race where we didn’t finish. It didn’t help that Lewis scored a lot of points but that’s the way it goes. But I never think about the last race, so I’ll be focused on the start on Sunday. Energy is well spent looking forward.”

Vettel led for the duration of the season until the Italian Grand Prix (the race prior to Singapore), when Hamilton took the win to move ahead for the first time with six races to go.

Now the Briton is boasting the momentum in the title race as he bids for a fourth straight win.

But Vettel warned: “There’s still a lot of races left. I think we have a strong car. I’m not too fussed about the amount of points. It’s never good to be behind, but the response from the team has been very positive. You have to look at what’s coming.”

Create a FREE account to continue reading

eros

Registration is a free and easy way to support our journalism.

Join our community where you can: comment on stories; sign up to newsletters; enter competitions and access content on our app.

Your email address

Must be at least 6 characters, include an upper and lower case character and a number

You must be at least 18 years old to create an account

* Required fields

Already have an account? SIGN IN

By clicking Create Account you confirm that your data has been entered correctly and you have read and agree to our Terms of use , Cookie policy and Privacy policy .

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged in