Mercedes point finger at Ferrari’s ‘interesting tactics’
SI LVERSTONE, Uni te d Kingdom: Mercedes and Ferrari traded insults and accusations after Sebastian Vettel beat Lewis Hamilton to win the British Grand Prix on Sunday.
The controversy centred on an incident in the opening lap when Ferrari’s Kimi Raikkonen collided with Hamilton’s Mercedes at Turn Three.
As a result, the Englishman, who had started from pole position, dropped to the back of the field. The accident followed a first-lap collision at the French Grand Prix, when the other Ferrari, driven by Vettel, drove into the other Mercedes of Valtteri Bottas.
In France, Vettel was handed a f ive seconds penalty and On Sunday, Raikkonen took a 10-seconds penalty, but Mercedes felt these punishments were not sufficient.
Hamilton, his Mercedes boss Toto Wolff and the team’s nonexecutive chairman Nikki Lauda all suggested that Ferrari’s crashes with their team’s cars might be more than just unlucky “racing incidents.”
Vettel, who increased his narrow lead in the driver standings, responded by dismissing the talk as “quite silly.”
On Sunday, Hamilton drove a heroic race to fi nish second while Raikkonen, went on to secure the fi nal podium place.
After the race, the Mercedes driver struggled to hide his disappointment. He avoided a post-race interview and his body language as he kept away from Raikkonen in the pre-podium r oom and during the champagne spraying told its own story. When he was eventual ly interviewed on the podium after the two Ferrari men had departed, Hamilton took a swipe at his rivals: “Interesting tactics, I would say, from their side, but we’ll do what we can to fight them.” Hamilton later expanded on his comments. “It’s now two races one of the Ferraris has taken out one of the Mercedes,” he said. “There’s a lot of points there t hat Va l t t e r i a nd I have lost.” “We’ve just got to try to posit ion ourselves better so we are not knows whether that’s going to happen again. “We’ve got to work hard as a team to try to lock out the front row and make sure we’re fully ahead of these guys.” Wol f f quoted hi s team’s Technical Director, James Allison, as he raised the possibility of foul play. “It is a lot of constructors’ points. In James Allison’s words ‘do you think it is deliberate or incompetence?’ So, this leaves us with a judgement.” Lauda, who won two of his three championships with Ferrari, said: “The accident was unfai r basically because it ’ s t he s e c ond time a Ferrari hits us in the f i rst corner and it’s not funny, but that’s the way it is... “First of all, it was wrong when they gave Vettel f ive seconds. At least , now, they gave Kimi 10 seconds. The stewards realised what’s going on here...” Vettel now l e ad s the tit le race with 17 1 points, eight ahead o f Hamilton on 163 while Raikkonen is third on 116. Vettel shrugged off the accusations. “Why? Things can happen,” the German said.