ROAD RAGE
N
iki Lauda has made no bones about blaming
Sebastian Vettel for his ‘road rage’ incident during
the Azerbaijan Grand Prix, and says he would not
be surprised if Lewis Hamilton punched the Ferrari driver at
some point.
Speaking to reporters about Vettel after the headline
grabbing incident in Baku, Lauda said, “He freaked out in
himself. “When you hit somebody up the arse it is your fault.
No question. But then to drive next to him and hit him on
purpose, I have never seen anything like this.’
“To do that I don’t understand. Vettel is a decent guy
normally. This I don’t understand. He is crazy. Lewis will hit
him one day. Not with the car but with his fist.”
In the wake of Vettel’s angry swerve into Hamilton’s
Mercedes, the FIA race stewards slapped a ten seconds
stop-and-go penalty on the German and also made public
telemetry showing that Hamilton did not brake test Vettel as
the latter claimed immediately after the race.
Lauda said, “Nobody can criticise the stewards because
they are like a referee… but they could have done more,
certainly because I think it’s the worst you can do.”
“If you overtake somebody and drive into him as a
mistake, fine, but this was deliberately in a phase of the race
where you are driving slow.”
Lauda continued, “You have to be so under control
yourself that you don’t do that. First he was upset he hit
him up the back but this was also his fault, not Lewis’ fault.
Therefore what he did after I don’t understand. He could
have damaged his car, Lewis’ car and could have been
taken out of race, so I don’t know why he is risking all of
that,” added the triple Formula 1 World Champion and
Mercedes F1 team chairman.
Despite his shenanigans Vettel finished fourth and
Hamilton fifth, thus the Ferrari driver increased his lead
in the championship standings over his Mercedes rival
to 14 points (from 12 before the race) with eight world
championship rounds completed.