Sebastian Vettel has revealed how he “struggled” mentally to recover from his moment of road rage during the Azerbaijan Grand Prix after it cost him the victory in Baku.
In perhaps the most memorable moment of the season, the German, feeling as though he had brake tested moments earlier, would intentionally pull alongside and bang wheels with Lewis Hamilton awaiting a Safety Car restart.
For that, he would receive a 10-second stop/ go penalty for dangerous driving and it would ultimately cost him the win as the Mercedes driver had to pit the lap before to replace a loose headrest while leading.
Though it wouldn’t be a championship defining moment, the sense of guilt had a profound effect on the Ferrari driver.
“The worst feeling I had was after Baku just because I lost the race with something unnecessary. I struggled with that,” he said. “You struggle generally in life a lot more with things that you messed up rather than those that got messed up for you if you see what I mean.”
Certainly, for Vettel, it would be easier to come to terms with the two retirements which would decide the championship.
“Singapore, in my point of view, that’s racing,” the 30-year-old said of the start crash with Kimi Raikkonen and Max Verstappen. “I thought about it a lot on Sunday night and it wasn’t easy to put behind me but then what do you do? The same in Japan (after a spark plug problem forced him out the race).”
As a whole, however, the four-time world champion does think the luck balanced itself out and that made losing to Hamilton easier to take.
“I think we all want to have the perfect result every single time,” he acknowledged. “There were races where we [the team] could have done better and races where I could have done better but there were also races where we should have done a lot worse and we didn’t.
“Obviously some of the races get highlighted and you get a lot of praise for it. Other times you get a lot of the opposite but that’s part of the game.
On missing out on the title, Vettel added: “I don’t know if it’s the literal translation to English, but you can’t hold onto something that is not in your hands. That’s a good fit and sometimes things are not in your hands and you have to move forward.
“I think the more important thing for us drivers, for us as a team, is to understand where we have been strong and where we have been weak.”
Also reflecting on what was the first real head-to-head battle between himself and Sebastian for the championship, Hamilton thinks his rival’s mistakes were due to an inability to maintain his composure.
“Seb showed more nerves this season than before,” the Briton told Germany’s Stuttgarter Nachrichten newspaper. “None of us are superman, and everyone can fail under extreme pressure.
“Some reached that point sooner, others later. It’s like tennis. If Federer plays against Nadal, one waits for a small weakness in the other, because half a percent is enough.”
In comparison, the Mercedes driver claims he faltered more when there wasn’t the stress of a championship fight.
“You saw it at the end of the season,” he said. “Suddenly I had no more pressure and was not very good. I compare this season with a 100-metre sprint by Usain Bolt. He often gets a bad start but then he comes back.”
