Sebastian Vettel said today that he has never had the support of team mate Mark Webber as the Malaysian GP saga continued to rumble on.
Grilled by the world’s media for over 20 minutes Vettel insisted once more that he hadn’t intended to disobey the now infamous Multi 21 command to hold station behind his team mate – and admitted that he’d made a mistake by ignoring it.
However one of his more intriguing confessions concerned Webber,
“I think being completely honest I never had support from his side,” Vettel said of Webber. “I’ve got a lot of support from the team, and I think the team is supporting both of us the same way. But in terms of my relationship to Mark, I respect him a lot as a racing driver, but I think there was more than one occasion in the past where he could have helped the team, and he didn’t.”
Asked if that had contributed to his behaviour in Malaysia, he said: “Probably you could say indirectly. But as I tried to explain to you after the race, it’s probably always best to be truthful. Maybe sometimes the truth is not what the people want to hear, because as you can see, controversy is more popular than the truth.
“I told you after the race what happened. I was racing, and as a racing driver I was solely focussed on winning the race. I got a call on the radio, which I heard, but I didn’t understand at the time. I should have understood it. That’s why I apologised to the team, because with my action I put myself above the team, but that wasn’t the intention. Whether you believe me or not is up to you.
“I didn’t obey the team’s order, which as I said was not my intention. My intention for sure if you look at it as a racing driver was to win the race, so I don’t apologise for winning the race.”
Asked whether he had faced any sanctions from the team, he joked: “There are a lot of marks on my back! No, as I said I like to deal with these things face-to-face. I’ve always been open, I think I’ve always been truthful, so if I have something to admit or talk about, something that I did wrong, I have no problem admitting it. It’s probably not always the easiest to tell the truth, but that’s what I did straight away after the race to you, and straight to the team to explain myself.
“As I said my intention was not to put my interest above the team’s interest, because as I see my position, I’m a team member, so I’m one of them. The team is putting a lot of effort to give me a good chance to win races, to have a strong car, and ultimately trust me. I want to give that trust back as much as I can.”
Adam Cooper F1 
Truthful? How truthful is it to hide behind obscurities such as:
“I got a call on the radio, which I heard, but I didn’t understand at the time. I should have understood it”
Nonsense. If you were being truthful Seb, you would have admitted that you ignored the team’s instructions. This harping-on about being truthful and honest is further infantile chicanery – pardon the pun.
It’s time Vettel became a man – gentleman seems too far.
“lot of marks on my back”
That is an interesting wordplay. It is good to see that the kid has not lost his sense of humor amidst the intense media scrutiny.
Full of brown and smelly
Seb. You are simply coming up with any old crap to justify what was childlike and selfish behaviour. All this suggestion of the ‘racer instinct’ taking over and not understanding is pure BS. Once again you have gotten away with bad behaviour simply because you drive the best car as well as any other drivers drives their sub-standard (in comparison) cars. Once again you got away with it. Poor show from our poor role model for our young aspirin drivers.
“There is quite a conflict, because on the one hand I am the kind of guy who respects team decisions and the other hand, probably Mark is not the one who deserved it at the time.”
You would when the majority of them are in your favour!! And the suggestion that he is the arbiter of who is deserving is an outrageous statement of arrogance that illustrates his limited understanding of what took place and an overblown sense of entitlement.
SV got the better pit stop lap to prevent the Lewis undercut, which I completely understand and support. At this point the team obviously needed to point this out to SV in strong terms. MWs tyres were ruined on his ‘late’ inlap and SV put in a quali style outlap on fresh rubber to find himself next to him after the stops. Based on standard team practice, MW would normally have had the priority stop and driven off into the distance. Combine this with whatever engine mapping/KERS settings instructions that had been enacted/ignored by each driver -which were all set in SVs favor, PLUS the decision by MW to go to primes on the last stint under the mistaken impression there was no threat from behind AND that tyre longevity not performance was the key consideration and you have the circumstances that allowed SV to be
a) where he was on track in relation to MW as MW exited the pits
b) apparently faster than MW for pace (in his own mind) ‘at that stage of the race’
c) easily able to pass MW with only a modest and inevitable fight
d) convinced of his entitlement to the win
The greed and arrogance and hollow apologies are secondary to his inability to recognise how the situation arose at all.
“I think being completely honest I never had support from his side”
I think fans of the sport have seen that for a good while. Vettels titles were earnt by his side of the garage, the design team and Seb himself. To get three on the bounce without having a team mate who’ll help is an amazing return, keeping in mind that Schumachers five on the bounce were all with the assistance of a willing number 2.
The on track reaction is what I’m really looking forward to though, as it’s those red mist moments that define a driver.
Of course Webber never helped him. When has there ever been a team order didn’t come from the team but rather the kind heartedness of the other driver? Has he ever helped any of his teammates out of his own volition?
Dear Sebastian,
The first step in getting onself out of a hole is to stop digging.
Sincerely,
Your bemused fans.
“I didn’t obey the team’s order” or is it “I got a call on the radio, which I heard, but I didn’t understand at the time”
I’m genuinely surprised that after several weeks to think of a response – & knowing that it would come up in the first Chinese interview – the best Seb can do is the contradiction above. If he wants to go down the road of claiming he misunderstood the radio communications, fine, good luck with that. By trying to have it both ways & claim it was a misunderstanding he is damaging his reputation even further.
IMHO, better to stick with the first answer, I disobeyed the orders from the pit wall. It is the lesser of two evils to be seen as a ruthless, self serving individual than being seen as patently dishonest.
“………. but I think there was more than one occasion in the past where he [Webber] could have helped the team, and he didn’t.”……..pot meet kettle.
Look, I want a racing driver that wants to win. I can not stand Vettel and I like Webber, honestly. But I grew up watching Senna race and win, and one day in May, die while leading a race. He once said to Sir Jackie “that if you no longer go for a gap… then you are no longer a racing driver.”
Vettel saw that gap and went for it. I still do not like him, probably never will. Harsh truth is winners really do not have to apologize for being first. This is F1.
You miss the point that Webber was in effect told ‘take it easy he won’t be passing you’. Not exactly a fair fight or an honourable way to win is it?
Did Seb help the engineers calculate Mark’s fuel load in Q2 perhaps?
Please no conspiracy theories. If you think about it, Mark may have an advantage. By default he has saved some of the all important medium compounds for the race. Red Bull did not fly two cars across the world to play with one drivers fuel load.
“By default he has saved some of the all important medium compounds for the race.”
Yes peterg, that could have helped if they managed to secure the right rear tire properly!!
All prize money is awarded based on the team performance, so I have little doubt that Red Bull wants/needs BOTH cars to finish well up in the points. But it’s laughable the way circumstance constantly comes back to bite a liar like Vettel on the ass, isn’t it?