Unless you’ve been living under a rock, you’ve already heard about the drama at the Singapore Grand Prix that ended the race for multiple drivers. But what do those involved think about the incident?
Race commentators and many fans placed the blame for the incident on Sebastian Vettel, but he had this to say about the race start:
“I had an average start and then I moved slightly to the left trying to defend my position from Max. Then I got bumped on one side as Kimi’s car hit me. I’m not sure what happened. I span at turn 3, but that’s because the car was damaged already. Today we were on the wrong side of the track, which doesn’t help. But there is nothing we can do now and for sure it is bitter, and it’s a pity we couldn’t show our pace today; but we have other races ahead of us and I am sure there will be more opportunities for us.”
Kimi Räikkönen was the other piece of bread in the Ferrari sandwich. His post-race statement said:
“At the start I had a very good jump, then I got hit; that was the end of our race. I don’t think I could have really done anything differently to avoid it, apart from doing a bad start and not being there. It’s a pity, one of those things you pay a big price for. Whatever the cause or the issue, it doesn’t change the end result unfortunately. We go to the next races ready to fight and do our best.”
Unlike the Ferrari drivers, Max Verstappen was willing to place the blame on someone in his statement. He felt that Vettel was to blame for the incident:
“My start was a little bit better than Seb and I think he saw that so he tried to move to the left to squeeze me out of the line a bit but he did not know Kimi was on my other side. I think it wasn’t the smartest move and you can’t make excuses for it when you are fighting for a world championship. Kimi had a great start and was alongside me very quickly, I didn’t try and defend that as I knew it would be a long race, he then started to squeeze me also, at which point there wasn’t a lot I could do. The rear wheels are wider than the front so I was locked in the sandwich with no way out, even when I braked. If I made a mistake myself I would be upset or angry but there was nothing I could do today. We all lost out in the end so we all experienced some pain rather than someone making a mistake and then being able to carry on. We have to take the positives from the weekend, we were quick in qualifying and the practice sessions with good potential going into the race, we can hold onto this and move on to the next race.”
The official Scuderia Ferrari Twitter account Tweeted “VER took #Kimi7 out and then he went to #Seb5 #SingaporeGP” after the incident, defending their views a few hours later by Tweeting “What we tweeted was a factual description of events. No need to speculate on this”.
