Scuderia Ferrari‘s Sebastian Vettel has taken the blame for the incident he was involved in with Red Bull Racing’s Max Verstappen, in what was a bittersweet weekend for the Italian team at the British Grand Prix at Silverstone on Sunday.
The incident meant that the German dropped to sixteenth on the grid, while his team-mate Charles Leclerc finished on the podium in third position.
“Regarding the incident with Max, it was my mistake and I spoke to him afterwards and apologised,” said Vettel.
“I had thought a gap would open up on the inside but it didn’t and it looked for a second as if he was pulling into the middle but he stayed left, but by that time it was already too late, I was too close and I couldn’t avoid the crash.” he admitted.
Vettel said that the Ferrari and Red Bull Racing cars have been very evenly matched recently, meaning it would have been difficult to bring the fight to the Dutchman even if the accident hadn’t occurred.
“Ferrari and Red Bull have been very closely matched in the last few races and I think it would have been difficult to fight Max off anyway.”
Putting his misfortune to one side, Vettel recognised that the team had pace, benefitting from the Safety Car period which resulted from Alfa Romeo Racing‘s Antonio Givonazzi going off the circuit.
“Apart from that, our race pace was really good, and the initial laps went well and I benefited from the Safety Car to get ahead of three cars. I don’t think we could have won today, but I’m not happy that I didn’t even score any points.”
