Sebastian Vettel was left to rue a spin at the second race start as he left the British Grand Prix pointless.
The German was reliving his epic Silverstone battle with Fernando Alonso from 2014 as the pair went side-by-side through Luffield, but it all went wrong when Vettel lost the rear on exit and spun into the old pit-lane entry.
After that, the four-time world champion was unable to recover before retiring.
“The weekend was looking promising and without all the problems, I should have finished well inside the points,” Sebastian said.
Also Read:
- Vettel questions giving pole position to Sprint winner but wants to ‘give it a go’
- Vettel no more ‘vulnerable’ to oversteery cars than other drivers
“I’m very disappointed to lose the car in a wheel-to-wheel battle with Fernando. I’m not sure exactly what happened but I misjudged it, lost grip and spun.
“After that, I was right at the back. In the end, we didn’t finish the race because the team retired the car with a cooling issue.”
Despite the unwanted result, Vettel then showed his class post-race by joining fans to collect litter in the grandstands left by the 140,000+ crowd on the race.
There was some good news on the track for Aston Martin though, as Lance Stroll came through to equal his best result of 2021.
“I am really happy with my race because we were able to turn around a tricky start to the weekend by finishing in P8 and scoring four points,” the Canadian commented.
“We have been working to find the right car balance and we had a breakthrough today, which is a great credit to the team and all the effort everyone has put in.
“The key to the race was making two strong starts either side of the red flag, where we gained several places each time.
“The strategies were quite similar for the whole grid, making overtaking more tricky, but those starts set us up for a good race.
“The new format has been a challenge for everyone this weekend, but I think there are positives and we can learn how to maximise the other events with Sprints.”
There was a strange moment for Stroll during the race, however, as his car was briefly disturbed by the TV helicopter as you can see below…