Sebastian Vettel defends his Jenson Button overtake during the German Grand Prix – Formula 1 news
Sebastian Vettel has defended his overtaking manoeuvre on McLaren driver Jenson button which has caused him to fall down from his second place finish to fifth.
Vettel overtook Button on the penultimate lap of the race running off the track. Vettel finished the race and celebrated his podium finish with the winner Fernando Alonso and Button but later the stewards gave the verdict that due to the illegal move by
the German they have penalised him with a time penalty of 20 seconds.
The penalty has moved Lotus driver Kimi Raikkonen at third giving him another podium in the season.
Vettel said that while Button was defending the inside line in to turn six hairpin and he went wide off the track to make room to go past the Brit from off-line slippery paint. Vettel added that he could not see him at that moment just before the manoeuvre.
“It was a decent race,” Vettel said. “Not enough pace, especially once we got close enough to Fernando at some parts of the race; in the beginning and then after the first stop we were never close enough to really start the manoeuvre. In the end we lost
the position to Jenson who I think had a good stop - he came in a little bit earlier plus a couple of laps before that I lost quite some time with Lewis - and then in the end Jenson's tyres were absolutely gone and we were able to close the gap again.”
Vettel defended his move by pointing out the working of “gaining an advantage” and said that going onto the sidetrack paint surface, he would have less of a grip on the track and hence he did not in any way gain an advantage over Button.
He said he was very happy to get a podium finish in front of his home crowd but despite his disappointment he has to respect the decision of the stewards.
Vettel is placed third in the drivers’ championship standings at the moment behind the leader Fernando Alonso and his team-mate Mark Webber. It will be interesting to see how Vettel counters this blow in the next race at Budapest.
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