Vettel defends Hamilton over Verstappen 'dickhead' comment

Sebastian Vettel leaped to the defence of Lewis Hamilton after the Formula 1 world champion called rival Max Verstappen a "dickhead". Hamilton and Verstappen collided on the second lap of Sunday's Bahrain Grand Prix and the Mercedes driver made the remark while in the cool room after salvaging a third-place finish.

Both Hamilton and Verstappen were displaced, starting ninth and 15th respectively, but the Dutchman had caught Hamilton over the first lap and passed him at the first corner.

However, Hamilton's front wing caught the left-rear tyre of Verstappen's Red Bull, causing a puncture which damaged the car sufficiently to cause its retirement soon after.

Watching the incident back post-race, Hamilton was heard muttering: "He's such a dickhead." Vettel tried to stifle a laugh, but was much more serious when a Dutch journalist raised the matter in the post-race press conference.

When Hamilton was asked about the incident, Vettel interjected: "Can I answer that question? I think it's not fair.

"I don't know what Lewis did. We've all been in that situation, we fight someone, we go sometimes wheel-to-wheel, it's close and you have a lot of adrenalin going.

"Do you think, comparing to football, if you have a microphone on a football player's mouth, that everything he says is something nice and is a nice message when the guy tackles him and maybe sometimes he fouls him or not?

"So I don't think it's justified to give us these kind of shit questions and making up a story out of nothing.

"If we are just racing and we are full of adrenalin and sometime we say these things. I mean if I hit you in your face, you're not going to say "oh, Sebastian, that wasn't nice". It's a human reaction.

"Sometimes I feel it's all a bit blown up and artificial if we have these questions, trying to make a story out of nothing. So, it's not personal, don't take it personal."

Hamilton added his take on the matter: "Honestly, I don't really remember it. I think maybe it was when we were talking afterwards?

"Ultimately, I had a coming together with Max and it was an unnecessary collision.

Hamilton calling Verstappen dickhead, and Vettel trying not to laugh. pic.twitter.com/UEQyWFKCDN — Evans Anjos (@Evans23) April 8, 2018

"There needs to be a certain respect between drivers and ultimately… maybe I need to go and watch the manoeuvre again, but it didn't feel like a respectful manoeuvre, but ultimately it was a silly manoeuvre for himself, because he didn't finish the race.

"And obviously he's tending to make quite a few mistakes recently, so it was just unnecessary for him to do that.

"I can't really remember at what stage of the race it was or why we were even in that position, but yeah, I don't really care to be honest."