Mercedes motorsport boss Toto Wolff has come to the defence of Sebastian Vettel after he was criticised for his first lap incident with Lewis Hamilton at the Italian Grand Prix.
In front of the partisan Tifosi at Monza, expectations were high that Ferrari could claim their first win at home since 2010 after locking out the front row in qualifying.
Those hopes were dashed, however, when the German spun at the second chicane following contact with his main championship rival, leading to the arguments by some that the tendency for crucial errors by Vettel would ultimately cost him another title.
“I’m not completely neutral, but for me Lewis is the best driver of recent years,” Wolff began, speaking to the Die Welt newspaper. “Even so, I find the criticism of Sebastian not quite fair.
“If possible to win, he has the ambition to do it with the necessary aggression, that requires a lot of courage and his way of driving sometimes leads to collisions. But let’s not forget that he won four world championships. As I do with Lewis, you have to accept that.”
Though it was Vettel that came off second best in the exchange, leading to the criticism, the Austrian believes luck played a factor.
“It could easily have been Lewis instead of Sebastian who spun, then the whole Grand Prix would have been different,” said Wolff.
“In the high tech world of Formula 1, everything is not decided linearly and rationally, but also with luck, misfortune and coincidence.”
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Looking ahead to this weekend’s race in Singapore, expectations are Ferrari should dominate around a street circuit which also highlights the main weaknesses of the German manufacturer.
Toto though is not giving up.
“We will give it everything in Singapore and all of the remaining races,” he declared. “We will turn the whole factories in Brixworth and Brackley upside down to extract performance, and go to Singapore with the aim of doing the best.
“Whether that is good enough to win the race or not I don’t know yet, but the next seven races are going to be maximum attack.”
