Sebastian Vettel was giving very little away when quizzed on the Turkey collision today.
The German, clearly very keen to put the accident behind him, did not want to dwell on who was to blame, or express any regret for his actions.
“What happened, happened,” said Vettel. “There’s not much more to say. You can look at it from many different angles. I think you can’t change it now. Looking back I wouldn’t have done anything differently. Obviously what happened was bad for both of us, for the team especially, because we made quite some presents to McLaren in particular.”
Asked if he blamed Webber, Vettel said: “I didn’t say that did I? If you look from the outside… If you look at how much time there was from when I was close enough to the accident, it’s not that you have hours to think about it, with the speed about 310km/h, things happens so quickly that being 20cms more left more right whatsoever can make a lot of difference.”
He denied that he had made an aggressive move to the right.
“If you look at my onboard, I don’t see any aggressive movement. I did what I did and it didn’t work. You want to know what I did? I was close enough, I made the move, in F1 it’s not that easy to get close enough, so I got in the tow and went on the left, dived on the inside. Obviously there was not a lot of room for me on the inside, it was just one car width, which was fine. And then obviously I had the tow, so the overspeed, so I was passing, was more than half a car ahead, and then tried slowly to come back to the right. Then I spun.
“To be honest F1 is not about yesterday, it’s about tomorrow, so I don’t want to spend much time talking about what happened. There has been so many things in the press about engine turning down, turning up, whatsoever, being this and that. And most of it is not true.
“But the most important thing is we carry on, we have to move on. There is the next race here so two difficult races for us probably. But I’m confident, I mean so far we’ve see that our car works pretty well on all types of circuits, no matter the characteristics. So it should be good here as well. Let’s see.
“If you look, all four cars, Mark and myself, Lewis and Jenson, were in similar pace. I think it was quite exceptional to have a race for 40 laps within three or four seconds. Nobody was a second faster than anybody else. At that time I felt that I could do quicker, as I said got close enough, tried to pass, and it didn’t work.”
Asked if he would treat Webber differently now on track, Vettel said: “To cut a long story short, what happened, happened. Obviously it looks extremely stupid when it happens amongst team mates, so as I said I’ve talked to him, and I think we’re both fine with the situation. If it happens again then it looks very stupid. I think it will not happen.”
Adam Cooper F1 
I always tend to believe what drivers ( except the youngest wdc ) say . Whatever he said above is fair
The crucial bit is that Vettel now says he wouldn’t do anything differently if the same situation comes up again in the future.
Christian Horner said in a recent interview that the new intra-team agreement following Turkey is that the car in front has to yield if his teammate tries to overtake him. The car in front has to assist in being overtaken (or at least help in making the move of the other driver not end in a crash, which kind of amounts to the same thing) if it’s your teammate appearing alongside of you. Sounds strange but I think it’s still fair if it’s the same for both drivers.
Looking back at Turkey this sort of vindicates Vettel inching to the right because he was already half a car’s length in front and makes Webber take the blame for not helping Vettel to make his move work.
I know the majority of F1 fans will hate RBR for this but I think it’s brilliant! I’d maybe even like to have something like that as a general F1 sporting rule for all drivers. If they weren’t allowed to defend up to the point of risking a crash just to stay in front, the racing would be much more lively …
I’m disappointed in Seb. I get that it all happened in fractions of a second at 200 mph. But to watch the video, see himself turn right into a straight-as-an-arrow Webber, and not accept offer up a mea culpa reveals a massive character flaw (perhaps only exceeded by Alonso’s blackmail hissyfits at McLaren).
Accepting responsibility for one’s actions doesn’t mean you did anything on purpose. Of course he should have done something differently: he shouldn’t have turned right into another car.
To say he’s not Red Bull’s golden child reveals an equally massive blind-spot. There is, of course, nothing wrong with RB’s investment in Seb. Indeed, it would make all of their lives easier if they would just say what the rest of the world already knows. Pretending otherwise is a bit disingenuous.