Lewis Hamilton reaffirmed his belief that Sebastian Vettel acted against the regulations when initially defending his position during the Russian Grand Prix.
Before the controversy of Mercedes using team orders to give the Briton the win in Sochi, an error in judgement had put Hamilton behind his main title challenger after the pit-stop phase.
Vettel would only keep Lewis behind for one lap, however, with the pair first going wheel-to-wheel on the approach to Turn 2 with the Ferrari driver firmly closing any gap up the inside.
“For me, he did move over to the inside and then he moved again and nearly put me in the wall. I thought that was a double move but I guess they didn’t see that,” Hamilton said, with the stewards investigating but deciding there was no further action to be taken.
It would be a temporary rebuttal of the Mercedes though, as the 33-year-old followed closely through the long Turn 3, making a move up the inside into Turn 4.
“It was a question of who was going to brake earlier for the next corner and I wanted it more at the time,” he concluded.
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Giving his side of the story, Vettel had his own frustration at what he saw as tactics by the lead Silver Arrow of Valtteri Bottas to help his temmate.
“I mean, obviously Valtteri, as soon as he saw I was behind, he backed off,” he claimed. “I lost one and half seconds just to make me probably run into him but I didn’t mind because I thought I could sneak DRS.”
Sebastian admitted though it was an error of his own doing which ultimately, allowed Hamilton to pounce.
“I had a tiny lock-up there [Turn 12] and then the last two corners were particularly difficult,” he explained. “Lewis was close and he was on really new tyres, whereas mine were just a lap old but not new.”
Though some argued Vettel could have defended the eventual pass made on him, he surprisingly conceded he didn’t want to push the limits of fairness.
“Obviously I had a compromised run out of the second corner defending my position, then it was very difficult to see where he was, I couldn’t see him for a very, very long time,” he said.
“I didn’t want to be a complete arse by pushing him into the dirt and potentially into the wall, so I wasn’t quite sure where he was and then at some point I had to give in.
“I thought I could maybe get it back out of Turn 4 but I had to give him the entrance, otherwise at some stage it just becomes silly.
“I wasn’t happy when I lost the position,” he concluded.
