Related News
Home » Sports » Motor Racing
Vettel moves on from Singapore crash
Sebastian Vettel says he has moved on from the first lap Singapore Grand Prix crash that left the Ferrari driver 28 points behind Lewis Hamilton in the Formula One championship battle.
The German told reporters at the Malaysian Grand Prix yesterday that he felt he still had time to close the gap on his Mercedes rival.
“I don’t think there’s much assessment necessary,” said the four-times world champion, sitting between team mate Kimi Raikkonen and Red Bull’s Max Verstappen at a news conference ahead of Sunday’s race.
“Obviously, on Sunday all three of us were unhappy but you move on.
“I think we have a lot of races left, I think we have a strong car. I’m not too fussed about the amount of points,” he added.
The start-line carnage that wiped out all three drivers’ hopes cleared the way for Hamilton to win from fifth place on the grid.
With just six of the 20 rounds remaining, the gap between Hamilton and Vettel — who had led until only two races ago — is the biggest it has been so far in an otherwise hard-fought season.
Vettel will have to win four of the remaining six races just to even the score again if Hamilton were to finish second in them all.
The Briton won’t need to win another race this season if Vettel, a record four-time winner in Malaysia, finishes lower than second on Sunday.
But the 30-year-old has staged seemingly impossible comebacks in the past, including in 2010 when he clinched his maiden title despite trailing Hamilton by 31 points with six races to go.
That was in a different era, however, with Hamilton at McLaren and cars using the old V8 engines.
Hamilton, who suffered a similar championship setback to Vettel a year ago in Malaysia when his engine blew while he was leading, was also reluctant to hail the Singapore race as the season’s decisive turning point.
“There’s lots of turning points within a year,” he told reporters. “I’m going to try and make sure that was the last one.”
- About Us
- |
- Terms of Use
- |
- RSS
- |
- Privacy Policy
- |
- Contact Us
- |
- Shanghai Call Center: 962288
- |
- Tip-off hotline: 52920043
- 沪ICP证:沪ICP备05050403号-1
- |
- 互联网新闻信息服务许可证:31120180004
- |
- 网络视听许可证:0909346
- |
- 广播电视节目制作许可证:沪字第354号
- |
- 增值电信业务经营许可证:沪B2-20120012
Copyright © 1999- Shanghai Daily. All rights reserved.Preferably viewed with Internet Explorer 8 or newer browsers.