Crash ‘either deliberate or incompetence’

Crashes, controversy, conspiracy; good versus evil at 200mph. The British Grand Prix served up a tribal classic in the pitiless heat of Silverstone, the winners, away team Ferrari, accused of foul play; the losers, home team Mercedes, making a defeat a matter of virtue.

About conceding the lead to championship leader Sebastian Vettel from pole, Lewis Hamilton, pictured, can have no quarrel. His outrage at the rough-house treatment he received from Vettel’s Ferrari team-mate, Kimi Raikkonen, which beached him in the gravel at turn three, had about it the ring of justification. Referencing the whack taken by his Mercedes team-mate, Valterri Bottas, at the hands of Vettel in France a fortnight ago, Hamilton, who recovered brilliantly to finish second, offered this assessment: “All l would say is that it’s two races in which a Ferrari has taken out a Mercedes. Valtteri and I have both lost out in those situations. Interesting tactics but we will do what we can to fight them.”

Mercedes team-principal Toto Wolff hardened the response into quasi-accusation. “Le Castellet [French GP] was the first time we got taken out and this is the second. It’s a lot of constructor points. To put it in James Allison’s [Mercedes technical chief ] words, this is either deliberate or incompetence.”

All of which sounded like anguished moans of the vanquished to Vettel, who with victory extended his championship lead to eight points. “It’s sillytothinkthatanything happened was deliberate. I don’t think there was an intention and l think it’s unnecessary to even go there.” Raikkonen, who finished third, accepted his guilt and felt the penalty, a ten-second stop-go, was an appropriate sanction. “My bad, but that’s how it goes sometimes. It was my mistake, so that’s fine. I deserve it.”