Sebastian Vettel : “Was Clear I Was Left Out to Slow Down the Renaults”

Sebastian Vettel was not a happy man when the race at Sochi came to an end. It was yet another disappointing race for the German as he ended up crossing the line in 13th place. After the race, he revealed that the team used him as a “Brake Block.”

Vettel had a decent start to the race but was forced to slow down after Turn 2 when a damaged Sainz’s car bounced back onto the track. As the race progressed, he crawled his way up to P13 and eventually held on to the place till the end.

After the race, he revealed that Ferrari used him to slow the Renaults down. “It was a bit of a boring race as we didn’t have many options in terms of strategy,” said Vettel.

“My start, from the dirty side of the track, wasn’t ideal, so I couldn’t benefit from other people’s crashes and collisions. I tried everything I could but wasn’t able to capitalize on lap one. I didn’t have a clear track ahead of me, so that was a shame.

“After the safety car period I was a bit stuck, and I struggled to stay close to the cars in front of me,” said the German.” Then I think obviously we got stuck in the slow group at the back of the field, and that was our race.

“I played the brake block until the pit stop. After that, there was not much left. It was clear I was left out to slow down the Renaults. It didn’t help me, of course. I think we could have taken a point, but that doesn’t change much now.”

While Leclerc was fighting for P6 with Esteban Ocon, Vettel was left fighting for P13. During the latter part of the race, he was under pressure from Kimi Raikkonen.

Won’t be an easy weekend, says Sebastian Vettel on his upcoming home race

Formula 1 will move to Nurburgring for its next race weekend. The circuit is making a re-entry into the calendar after almost 7 years. But Vettel expects the race to be as bad as it has been in the previous race weekends.

“It’s certainly one of the nicer races, but the car will be similar like the last two weeks so it won’t be an easy weekend,” said the German. Vettel is currently in P13 on the Drivers’ Championship standings, as his miserable season endures.