Sebastian Vettel approached his Mexican Grand Prix weekend with a tiny hope of being crowned champion at the end of the season. His masterful pole position on Saturday had reinforced his optimistic view of a race that could have delayed the inevitable.<\/p>\n
But that was without counting on the missile Max Verstappen at the wheel of Red Bull, who came to assert himself strongly at the first corner, creating a mess in the subsequent turns and forcing the two championship contenders, Vettel and Lewis Hamilton, to make an early pit stop after a collision between them: \u00ab I am not afraid of him and I love fighting against him, and I would have liked that to happen a bit more often this season. \u00bb the German quickly stated about this racing incident.<\/p>\n
The Ferrari driver acknowledges, however, the superiority of his rival and the Mercedes team throughout the season, even though the German led a large part of the drivers’ championship this year: \u00ab Overall, Mercedes has been the best team. He [Hamilton] did a great job all year and therefore deserves to win the title. So, I congratulate him. It’s all about him today, it’s his day! \u00bb<\/p>\n
Vettel nevertheless wishes to remain positive and already sets a date for the next race in Brazil to aim for victory: \u00ab Tomorrow will be another day. The team is growing, and there are many positive aspects. Overall, I think we are on the right track. \u00bb<\/p>\n
A championship lost but not during this last race, quite strange for Vettel and Ferrari: \u00ab I know the team worked hard, did their best, but we didn’t achieve what we wanted. It’s difficult to cross the line knowing you’re no longer in the fight. I fought until the end, giving everything I had. So obviously in the last laps, when I had a big gap with Kimi, it would have been difficult for me to close it without something happening, like a safety car, but I was still believing. But in the end, it didn’t happen. Obviously, it’s not a great day for us \u00bb. concludes Vettel.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
After a high-stakes race where he raced against time, Sebastian Vettel sees his last hopes for the title slip away. Although disappointed by this outcome, he remains a good sport and doesn’t hesitate to congratulate Lewis Hamilton on his championship victory.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":30,"featured_media":38169,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1,1749],"tags":[92,970,1430],"class_list":["post-11039","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-f1","category-news","tag-bilan","tag-mexico","tag-vettel"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n