Vettel: Not the sport I fell in love with

Feeling robbed of the Canadian GP victory by the stewards, Sebastian Vettel says today’s F1 is “not the sport I fell in love with.”

Vettel was on course for the victory at the Circuit Gilles Villeneuve, which would have been his and Ferrari’s first for this season.

Dogged by Lewis Hamilton throughout the second half of the grand prix, Vettel made a mistake through Turns 3 and 4 and ran off the circuit.

The German’s momentum saw him return to the track ahead of Hamilton, cutting the Brit off and forcing him towards the wall.

The stewards felt Vettel’s action were “unsafe” and hit him with a five-second time penalty that cost him the race win.

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He wasn’t happy to put it mildly.

“I really love my racing. I’m a purist,” Vettel said in the FIA post-race press conference.

“It’s not just about that decision today. There’s other decisions. And the wording when people come on the radio we have now – we have an official language that I think is all wrong. We should be able to say what we think, but we’re not.

“I’m not happy about all this complaining and stuff that we see so many times. It’s racing. It’s common sense.

“In this regard, I disagree with where the sport is now. We have all this wording – I gained an advantage, I didn’t gain an advantage, I avoided a collision, all this – I just think it’s wrong. It’s not really what we’re going in the car.

“Nowadays I don’t like it. We all sound a bit like lawyers using the official language and I just think it gives no edge to people and no edge to the sport.

“Ultimately it’s not the sport I fell in love with when I was watching [as a child].”

Vettel once again insisted he did not deliberately try to push Hamilton towards the wall or cut him off.

“I was coming back on track and trying to make sure I had the car under control,” he said.

“Once I regained control and made sure it was alright, I saw in the mirrors that Lewis was right behind me.

“I don’t think I could have done anything different. I don’t know what the problem was.”

Asked if there was more he could have done, he replied: “No. How?

“I’ve got two hands and I have them on the steering wheel trying to keep the car under control.”

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