Vettel Rubbishes Hamilton’s British GP Claims

Ferrari’s Sebastian Vettel has said that Lewis Hamilton’s claim that Kimi Raikkonen deliberately crashed into him was ‘silly’. However, he held no grudge against Lewis over the remarks.

“It was silly to say but we are racing and it is never great if you get hit without doing anything wrong,” he said.

“And it is fine to express your opinion. Even if it is not right or reasonable, it is human. It is two weeks ago; we move on.”

The Mercedes driver later apologised for the accusation, saying he was “dumb” to suggest such a thing. In the heat of the moment, he said that Ferrari were using “interesting tactics” following incidents in two of the last three races.

At Silverstone, Raikkonen seemingly misjudged his braking and ran into the back of Hamilton. This dropped the home favourite to almost last place, from where he fought back to finish second behind Vettel.

Two races earlier, Vettel collided with Hamilton’s team-mate Valtteri Bottas at the first corner.

Interestingly, Hamilton was not the only one making snide comments in the heat of the moment at Silverstone.

Vettel also stoked the flames, saying that Ferrari had “won in their home”. It was a jibe at the fact that the Mercedes factory is a few miles down the road from the track.

Hamilton said on Thursday: “I heard there was something said. I see that as a weakness, the whole need to even say anything. For me it is something we can work with and it doesn’t affect me whatsoever. Good for him.

“We will just keep our heads down and focus on trying to do a better job across the board. That is our approach right now.”

Vettel currently has an 8-point lead over Hamilton as the season reaches its halfway point at the German Grand Prix this weekend.