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F1 British GP: Vettel ‘caught by surprise’ as tyres fail on penultimate lap

Sebastian Vettel was refusing to be too disheartened by the outcome of his dramatic conclusion to the British Grand Prix after losing crucial points to F1 title rival Lewis Hamilton when he suffered a late tyre failure.

Both Vettel and Kimi Raikkonen saw their left-front tyres delaminate in the final laps of the Silverstone race, dropping the German from fourth to seventh on the final lap as he was forced to pit.

Resulting in Vettel's F1 lead to be slashed from 20 points to just 1 point, the Ferrari man was somewhat alarmed to see his team-mate fall foul as well despite his tyres being much younger.

"Hindsight is great it's easy but at the time [the tyre] felt OK. Kimi I think had a similar issue, and his tyres were at least five, six laps fresher so I think it caught us both by surprise.

Reflecting on a tough race as he diced with Max Verstappen early on and was passed by Valtteri Bottas to drop him off the podium, Vettel was frustrated by 'small things here and there'

"I think it could've been a little bit better for sure. Disaster, I don't think so. I think we had a good car, especially in the corners. The balance was alright. In the race obviously, brakes caught fire at the start, which compromised the start and from there it was a difficult race.

"Didn't get past Max, we did it with the pitstop. Then we were like P3, P4, it was clear that Valtteri would come because he benefitted at the beginning because I was stuck, but overall small things here and there that led into a busy afternoon.

"I'm sure [the fight with Verstappen] looked good but yeah [laughs] I wanted to make it past him, I didn't. So it was quite tricky, I tried everything. "

Zdroj: crash.net