Sebastian Vettel believes a “bored” Lewis Hamilton allowed Valtteri Bottas to win by 20 seconds in Australia.
It was a disappointing day at the office for the world champion as he once again failed to convert pole into victory Down Under.
And even though the Finn himself was on great form, Vettel, who slumped to fourth in a horrible first race for Ferrari, believes the final margin was more than flattering.
“I don’t know what Lewis was doing,” the German claimed. “I think he was probably bored and not happy because he lost the start.
“I think it’s not the first race where he’s doing something just to go round, he was just playing at that point.
“I was told also on the radio that he’s complaining about his tyres, but he made it quite safely to the end. Maybe he wasn’t too happy driving from that point onwards.”
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After the race, Mercedes suggested damage to the floor of Hamilton’s car may have contributed to his poor race pace, though he was also compromised by having to do an extended stint on the medium C3 tyres.
“I was planning to just stay close behind, two, three seconds,” the Briton explained. “Then obviously I had the issue with the car and the gap started to slowly increase. So it would have continued to increase.
“But then after that, I was trying to look after the tyres and then I got stopped super-early [for tyres] in reaction to the Ferraris.”
