Sebastian Vettel has described his late race behaviour at the Mexican Grand Prix as an overflow of emotions after he swore many times over team radio.
The German driver spectacularly went on a tirade after Max Verstappen cut a corner and failed to give the position back, gaining an advantage over Vettel.
He also believed that Verstappen was slowing him down so that Daniel Ricciardo could attack him, with Ricciardo and Vettel almost colliding in another late incident which saw himself and the Australian later sent to the stewards.
During the final few laps, Verstappen and FIA race director Charlie Whiting were victims to his choice of language.
“He’s just backing me off into Ricciardo, BLEEP me. Here’s a message for Charlie, BLEEP off, honestly, BLEEP off. Honestly, I think I’m going to hit someone. He has to give me the position, end of the story,” the German said when fighting on track in separate moments.
Vettel remained behind the Dutch driver as he went onto to take third, ahead of the Ferrari driver and Ricciardo, however, the FIA intervened to penalise him at the end of the race with a five-second time penalty that promoted Vettel to a podium finish.
The Ferrari driver spent a lot of time explaining himself after the race in both the podium interviews and post-race press conference.
In the later press conference involving the top three, Vettel appeared very cagey and apologetic about his behaviour, confirming that he did not want to ask Verstappen to explain his decision-making process to him.
“I don’t think there’s anything to say,” Vettel said.
He also said that he would speak to Charlie Whiting to explain his wording and expanded on how he felt at that moment in time.
“Well I think it was very clear, obviously I was very emotional, in fact, I’ve already to go to and see him.
“When you’re in the car, I was full of adrenaline, you can imagine. It’s not right, I think, what Max did, so when I was told that they’re looking into it for three laps then I was sort of getting upset.”
It is believed that Vettel has since apologised to Whiting after these comments. At the time of writing, Vettel remains third in the classification with no stewards action taken against him being announced.
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