Sebastian Vettel has defended comments he made a fortnight ago at the European Grand Prix, in which he supposedly claimed the safety car had been brought out to erase his vast lead.
The German, speaking at this weekend’s British GP, clarified his comments to reporters, explaining that whilst he didn’t believe it to be deliberate, it wasn’t necessary at the time.
“I never said it was deliberate,” he said. “I said from my point of view it was not necessary. But I’m not making the decisions. The race director is making that decision, they decide when it comes out. If they consider it to be necessary, we accept it.”
The Red Bull driver, who at the time enjoyed a 20 second lead to Romain Grosjean in second, says the amount of debris on circuit following an incident between Heikki Kovalainen and Jean-Eric Vergne, wasn’t enough to warrant the safety car.
“I’ve had time to look again at the cause for the safety car, and we had pieces of debris on the track before, and nothing happened, then we had a couple more [pieces of]…
“But, it’s not my decision. So I’m not saying the decision is right or wrong, in my opinion we could have continued racing without [the safety car]. But I had less overview at that moment than the race director.”
Vettel later retired from the race a few laps after the safety car returned to the pits.
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