Baku: The gloves are off and the fight is on between Formula One (F1) title rivals Sebastian Vettel and Lewis Hamilton.
Sunday’s explosive Azerbaijan Grand Prix more than made up for last year’s dull race here, bursting the budding ‘bromance’ and replacing it with something much more heavyweight.
Mercedes team boss Toto Wolff said as much after a crazy afternoon that saw mutual respect and camaraderie tossed aside amid angry accusations.
“Nobody wanted to see the schmoozing anyway, so now the gloves are off,” the Austrian told ‘Sky Sports’ television after Hamilton had dubbed the Ferrari driver a ‘disgrace’ and suggested they sort things out ‘face to face’.
“The sport needs the rivalry. What we have seen today (Sunday) is the ingredient of a great championship,” said Wolff.
In Spain last May, Hamilton had spoken about how enjoyable it was to be battling a rival who was not a teammate – his main opponent for the past three seasons – and the admiration he felt for Vettel’s speed and consistency. The Briton had warned then, however, that it might not last and Sunday he was proven right.
The battle lines were drawn the moment Vettel went into the back of Hamilton’s Mercedes during the second of three safety car periods, the German shaking his fists and pulling alongside to bang wheels in a gesture that looked a lot like ‘road rage’.
The stewards were clear in apportioning blame, imposing a 10 second stop-and-go penalty on the German for steering into Hamilton.
They bring Vettel’s tally in the last 12 months to nine and means another such sanction in Austria in two weeks’ time would trigger an automatic race ban for the following round at Silverstone.
“Deliberately driving into another driver and getting away pretty much scot-free as he still came fourth, I think that’s a disgrace. I think he (Vettel) disgraced himself today,” said triple champion Hamilton.
Vettel’s assertion that Hamilton had ‘brake-tested’ him, by slowing so suddenly that the Ferrari ran into the back of the Mercedes, was also undermined by evidence. FIA confirmed that Hamilton’s car data showed he ‘maintained a consistent speed and behaved in the same manner on that occasion as in all the other re-starts during the race’.
