Lewis Hamilton Responds to Devious Sebastian Vettel Move With Evil Laughter: “I Am In..”

Round 8 of the 2017 F1 championship, a race where all the Bose headphones survived. Remember the headset worn by Toto Wolff that suffered a massive blow at Jeddah in 2021, because of a ‘brake-test’ incident between Lewis Hamilton and Max Verstappen?

At Baku 2017, a similar script played out when car number 5 rear-ended car number 44. However, this time around it was the cars that suffered damage, instead of headsets. Hamilton led the race from his championship rival, Sebastian Vettel, who wore the red racing suit that season.

On lap 19, the cars trailed the safety car, when the Brit comes on his radio to say “can’t the safety car go any faster?”; moments, before suffering damage in the rear-end diffuser. Vettel, who followed the pack leader, crashed into the Mercedes and picked up damage on his front wing.

Consequently, the German turned his F1 car into a bumper car while exclaiming, “Man, he brake tested me, what the hell is going on?”. Vettel pulled over to the side of the Mercedes and turned into Hamilton’s car to show his frustration. The Briton, puzzled by the incident, said, “Vettel literally came outside me, and turned in and hit me” 

Later in an interview, Hamilton revealed his emotions inside the cockpit; he said, “For him to hit me, I was kinda like, I am in, I am in his head. And I just took it as like…. I was like for sure, what the hell is he doing? But I was like…” as Hamilton burst into laughter.

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Later, Vettel picked up a 10-second stop/go penalty, while the race control deemed Hamilton not guilty.

Lewis Hamilton and Sebastian Vettel’s relationship turns sour

F1 is a dog-eat-dog competition, where once a driver puts down his visor, then most friendships go out of the window and it is a merciless battle to the finish line. In 2017, Hamilton had his eyes on replicating Vettel’s trophy cabinet, which comprised four world titles.

In the aftermath of the brake-test incident, the German and the Brit fired ruthless comments over one another. Sebastian Vettel said, “F1 is for grown-ups, I drove alongside and we had a little contact. I wasn’t happy with the brake-testing. I drove alongside him and raised my hand to say that is not the way to do it.”

In reply, the Briton commented, “If he wants to prove he’s a man, we should do it out of the car face-to-face. Driving dangerously in any way can put another driver at risk. Luckily, we were going slow.”

“If we were going fast, it could have been a lot worse. Imagine all the kids watching Formula 1 today and seeing that kind of behavior from a four-time world champion,” concluded Hamilton.

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In the end, the former Ferrari ace crossed the chequered flag in P4, ahead of the 37-year-old in P5. Do you support Vettel in the way he acted at the 2017 Azerbaijan GP?