25/06/2018
NEWS STORY
If nothing else, Sebastian Vettel's first corner clash with Valtteri Bottas allowed the media a new target to focus on.
With Max Verstappen coming good in the last two races, and the youngster making clear his anger at the media's double-standards in the post-race press conference, Vettel's first lap mishap gave the press an ideal opportunity to target the 'old enemy'.
With Lewis Hamilton having already criticised the leniency of the penalty handed to the German, it was obvious the Briton would want to heap further damage on his nemesis.
However, when asked about the number of mistakes the German has made "in the last 12 months", and if someone at "his level" should be making them, the Briton's answer wasn't quite what was expected.
"I'm not really going to get into that," he began. "Honestly, I know what you're saying but it is really a racing incident in turn one and those things can happen.
"We're all going into that first corner at great speeds," he continued, "it's not always easy to... I mean I went deep and wide because I saw them really close to me so I thought I was going to get rear-ended, to be honest, so I went quite deep.
"No, I don't feel that he's particularly made more mistakes than... we're all on the edge, we're fighting for the World Championships, we're not pootling around, we're out there putting our lives on the line, we're out there putting the cars as far beyond the edge as we can in the safest manner.
"It's not like a train track, you don't just stay on the rails. Sometimes you can go off. We're only human."
Check out our Sunday gallery from Paul Ricard, here.