Vettel shocked by Schumacher crash aftermath

Sebastian Vettel has expressed his shock in seeing Mick Schumacher's Haas split into two after the German's crash at the Monaco Grand Prix.

Schumacher lost control over the bumps on the exit of the first section of La Piscine and was sent spinning into the Tecpro barriers.

The VF-22 had the rear-end structure ripped apart from the chassis, as was the case when Schumacher crashed heavily in qualifying for the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix.

Vettel has made no attempt to hide his mentorship of his compatriot, repaying the help provided by Schumacher's father Michael when he initially joined F1 15 years ago.

Asked if he was shocked to see the remnants of Schumacher's accident, Vettel replied: "Yeah I was and I was happy to hear on the radio he was fine before I got to the incident.

"It is easy to get it wrong so quickly. I don't know exactly what happened to him, I haven't seen it, but the main thing is he is okay.

"There is no doubt he is capable of doing a lot more of what he is showing at the moment but I think [the media] needs to give him a bit of a break."

Race control initially deployed the virtual safety car before upgrading to a full safety car for three laps, eventually red-flagging the race for barrier repairs.

Giving his thoughts on the decision, Vettel added: "I don't know if there could have been a red flag sooner but I guess it was the right call to repair the barriers."

Additional reporting by Ian Parkes

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