Vettel fuming with Pirelli after puncture costs him a potential podium

Sebastian Vettel has spoken out after he got a right-rear puncture on the penultimate lap of this afternoon’s Belgian Grand Prix. The German was running 3rd at the time, battling with Lotus’ Romain Grosjean for the final spot on the podium.

Vettel said he did not think Ferrari were being too aggressive with the strategy in trying to extend the stint, making just one stop in the race. This meant his tyres were 28 laps old when he received the puncture.

“Things like that are not allowed to happen. Full stop,” he said, “If it happens 200m earlier, I’m not standing here now.

“[What is] upsetting is, one thing, the result. This is racing, for sure, we deserved to finish on the podium, but the other thing, as I said, if this happens earlier then… I think it’s the sort of theme that keeps going around, nobody’s mentioning it, but it’s unacceptable.”

Vettel expressed his concerns about the tyres after Rosberg suffered a tyre failure in FP2, also during a high speed stretch. Pirelli blamed an external cut for the incident.

“What’s the answer? Same as every time. ‘There was a cut’. ‘Debris’. ‘There may be something wrong with the bodywork’. ‘The driver went wide’. If Nico tells us that he didn’t go off the track, he didn’t go off the track. I mean, why should he lie to us? It the same with me, I didn’t go off the track. It’s just out of the blue, the tyre explodes."

Pirelli’s motorsport director Paul Hembrey has assured that Rosberg’s and Vettel’s punctures are in no way connected.

“[The tyre] was at the end of wear life. When you do that, any tyre in the world that you have, when it gets to the end of its wear life, you’re going to have a problem,” he told Sky Sports F1's Ted Kravtiz.

“The wear life was indicated at around 40 laps, but it’s an indication. The race conditions can change that, and some factors involved in racing mean that sometimes it’s not as precise data.

“Rosberg was an external cut. This was pure wear.”

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