Sebastian Vettel has played down overtaking fears after the Chinese Grand Prix saw some close action, with some stunning overtakes being made.
Vettel himself produced an on the limit move on former team mate Daniel Ricciardo into turn 4. Vettel drove around the outside of the Australian and the two banged wheels on acceleration, making for on the edge viewing.
"It was difficult to get close -- like the last race, you felt the effect but here was a much better track to overtake," he said after the race. It's the way it should be -- you need to make it stick so it doesn't come for free. You shouldn't just open the flap (DRS) and sail past. It was good fun," he said.
"It's like football -- not every game is great,. In Australia we saw few manoeuvres, that's true, but that was often the case in Melbourne. Here everything was back to normal, so I don't see a problem," he added.
Marc Surer, a former F1 driver turned pundit for German television Sky, said: "I had not seen a Vettel like that for a long time."
Fergal Walsh
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Replies (2)
Login to replycalle.itw
Posts: 8,527
Its natural that we have less overtaking this year, its the very start of a new chassis era, its bound to be less. And you cannot in a fair way compare this season the 2016 season, last season was significantly above the norm when it comes to overtakes.
Ram Samartha
Posts: 1,172
It's always going to be somewhat track dependent. But what a great race, huh?! Vettel's moves on Kimi and Danny Ric were great, but what about Verstappen in the first two laps on wet tarmac! I thought the kid was going crash. Talk about treading the needle! Going to have to watch the replay of those moves a few more times. Kimi needs to take some overtaking lessons from Max! Kimi's got to do something this year. He's still a great driver and he's got the car this year, but he just doesn't stick his elbows out like he did when he was younger.