Sebastian Vettel bemused at sudden tyre deflation, not ruing retirement – Formula 1 news
Sebastian Vettel said that he is confounded by the puncture on his rear right tyre which caused sudden deflation and retirement at the end of the first lap of the recently concluded Abu Dhabi Grand Prix.
Vettel was trying to pick up the pace on the fast left-hander and Lewis Hamilton was not yielding for Vettel. Initially, it seemed that the two drivers might have had a collision which caused the issue, but soon it was revealed that Hamilton was far away
from the German’s car.
After the tyre was deflated, Vettel limped his way to the pit stop, which probably cause further damage to the suspensions of the car and finished Vettel’s race rather dramatically.
Vettel said that he had no prior indication or warning until he approached turn two and realised the flailing rubber had caused too much damage to the rear suspensions of the car.
The Red Bull driver told BBC, “To be honest, at the exit of the first corner everything seemed fine. As soon as I started turning in for the second corner I could feel something was odd on the rear right, and then I had to catch the car surprisingly.”
“The second time I had to catch it I couldn't do it anymore; I'd lost too much air already on the rear right and had a puncture and spun off. On the way back I damaged the suspension so badly that we couldn't carry on,” the current world champion further
added.
Vettel clearly perplexed at the nature of the incident said that he had no idea how and why it happened but it is something that the team will definitely be looking into.
He has had a dominant season yet Vettel said that he was not sure whether he was going to win the race after he had retained the lead at the start, but quickly added that it was not worth to dwell on now that the race is over.
It will be interesting to see how Vettel sees off the last race of the season after this incident, which is due to take place later in the month in Brazil.
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