The reactions to Sebastian Vettel´s comments from the European Grand Prix last Sunday, in which the 24-year old said that deploying the safety car was a conspiracy in order to ‘break our neck’, has received widespread negative publicity and several pundits and observers are now publicly shaming Red Bull and Sebastian Vettel for the comments.
Vettel claimed that the deployment of the safety car was ‘to break out neck’, in order to get some more excitement and un-predictability into the race again, after Vettel had been able to pull out a 20 second lead over his rivals. Also he stated that running with the lower speed, meant that the temperatures increased to a point where certain parts of the started to fail, finally ending in his retirement.
After the race Vettel said:
“It just went to sh*t,” Vettel said. “I think it was clear to see that [until then] we were pulling away without problems.
“I think we could have been spared the safety car period, [but] I think the reason is clear. I don’t think there was a danger. There were pieces on the track earlier [following the collision involving Bruno Senna and Kamui Kobayashi] and it was acceptable, [so] I think, in a sense, the safety car was to break our neck.”
Red Bull´s advisorDr Helmut Marko also agreed with Vettel, that there were some kind of conspiracy going on, targeting Red Bull, but former F1 driver Hans Joachim Stuck said that
The deployment of the safety car was justified and that “Sebastian Vettel should learn to be a good loser.
“It was clear there was debris on the circuit, representing a danger of puncture to the other cars. For that reason, the safety car was justified,” Stuck said.
“I don’t think that slow driving behind the Safety Car can be the reason for the failure, otherwise all other 22 vehicles would have also failed. There must have been some other damage. If the Red Bull overheated during the Safety Car period, then there it was designed wrong. The cars have to be able to handle all temperatures.”
