Vettel: People are trying to “hype” rivalry with Leclerc

Sebastian Vettel responded to questions about his collision with Charles Leclerc in Brazil by claiming people are trying to “hype” the rivalry between the Ferrari drivers.

Vettel spoke to media for the first time since the Brazilian Grand Prix on Friday, having missed Thursday’s media commitments due to the birth of his third child. Since the last race he met with Leclerc and team principal Mattia Binotto to discuss the incident and how it would be avoided in the future.

However Vettel declined to elaborate on what the consequences of the discussions were.

“Obviously it’s unfortunate what happened and we want to make sure it doesn’t happen again,” he said. “That’s clear. That’s the most important.

“The key for me is that we we get along, we don’t have a problem with each other. I know that outside tries to hype this a little bit, but actually there’s nothing to worry from the inside.

“I think the lesson is that if we race each other, then we need to give each other in that regard more room to make sure that we don’t touch because obviously it was a very little touch but the touch led to a poor result.”

[icon2019autocoursempu]”I don’t think there’s so much more to understand,” he added. “We’re both not happy with the outcome. Obviously we didn’t finish the race, so I’m happy with that front.

“We’re both grown up and we spoke to each other, we spoke with Mattia. I think we’ve tried to go through as much as we can and we tried to move on. And it’s clear that we want to make sure that this doesn’t happen to us again.”

Vettel’s Abu Dhabi Grand Prix weekend did not get off to an ideal start when he hit a barrier at the end of first practice. “It was a bit of a surprise,” he admitted, “I didn’t expect to actually spin.

“I knew that going in that I would have to catch the rear, but didn’t quite work so well. I’ve been unfortunate, but there was no damage other than the rim.”

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