Despite taking the victory from pole position at the Hungarian Grand Prix on Sunday, Sebastian Vettel believes that his Ferrari team-mate Kimi Raikkonen was the faster man, but there was no indication that he would have let the Finn through while struggling with a steering problem.
"I didn't do a favour to Kimi who obviously could go faster, I didn't have the pace," Vettel said. His battle with his steering led him to keep away from all kerbing in order to avoid exacerbating the problem, and otherwise he had to focus on keeping the wheel and car straight from the early stages.
"Towards the end it did come back a bit," he added. "I had a couple of laps where I had a bit of a cushion and I could breathe a bit. But yeah, I really had to stay focused the whole race. It was a weird feeling because basically it was tilted to the left so you go down the straights and the steering isn't straight and then in right-handers it's sort of OK."
Raikkonen, meanwhile, completed a one-two finish for Ferrari with second place and his eighth podium of the season. He acknowledged that he could have achieved more at a tight and twisty circuit like the Hungaroring, but also that the track's nature made the race challenging for everyone.
"The other guy has to do quite a big mistake or have some issue," Raikkonen said. "It's not easy to overtake and especially with team-mates you take more care. But at least they (Ferrari) are still happy - that's the main thing. Seb was first yesterday and he got away first and obviously the aim was whichever way we finish we're going to finish one-two."
Mason Hawker
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Bahrain International Circuit - Winter testing
Replies (4)
Login to replyWolfgang
Posts: 313
Kimi is really a class act. He could´ve done maybe more at the pitstop, but 7 points less for Seb (if he´d stayed at 2nd position) would´ve been crucial for him..
ianf1
Posts: 185
Call me a cynic, but I'm wondering if HAM gave the place back to BOT to emphasise the wing man behaviour going on at Ferrari? OK, I'm a cynic. I'll get my coat.
mclarenfan1968
Posts: 1,027
It's simple , if he doesn't play ball Bottas is going to have numerous "Erm my radio wasn't working" moments from now on. Ralf has done that to Montoya a lot. Bottas isn't messing around, THAT is the real reason why he gave it back got to count on favors when it matters most, otherwise turdshit boy has been a asswipe at every chance he has got, heck the whole Mclaren team were kissing his hind while screwing over a super champ like Alonso. People have short memories about whiner boy.
Wolfgang
Posts: 313
Do you think he knew what was going on at Ferrari?
After the race he said that he didn´t knew what they were doing: "probably because they were afraid of tyre failures"...... :-)