Hamilton sticks up for title rival Vettel

● Lewis Hamilton says title rival Sebastian Vettel should not be condemned for causing a crash at the start of last Sunday’s French Grand Prix.

Hamilton leads the championship by 14 points from the Ferrari driver, who collided with Valtteri Bottas’ Mercedes and finished fifth. “I don’t feel like Sebastian needs criticising,” Hamilton said.

“He is a four-time world champion and has won more than most. Everyone jumps at one single fault from any of us.”

Vettel’s error — which he admitted — was the second small mistake that has proved costly for the 30-year-old German this season, after misjudging an overtaking move at the Azerbaijan Grand Prix dropped him from second to fourth.

Hamilton, who won in France, appeared to criticise the five-second penalty Vettel received for the incident as too lenient after the race, because Bottas finished two places behind the Ferrari.

“You shouldn’t really be able to finish ahead of him if you took him out of the race,” Hamilton said on Sunday.

But at this week’s media day for today’s Austrian Grand Prix, Hamilton said: “People jump on the bandwagon and love to talk negative about someone.

“It is a strange scenario when a splitsecond decision can have a result as it did, yet a penalty of five seconds doesn’t appear to be significant enough.

“But that is the rules and it is a penalty nonetheless and he served it and moved on.”

The Austrian Grand Prix is held on Red Bull’s own track in Spielberg, and their driver, Daniel Ricciardo, insisted he was still in the title fight, despite being 49 points behind Hamilton in third place — a gap of almost two clear wins.

“I still feel we’re in it, to be honest,” the Australian said. “For sure, we’re still a little bit a long way from it, from a points perspective. But I feel we’re more in it than we have been in the years I’ve had with the team. — bbc.com