Sebastian Vettel will be retiring from Formula 1 at the end of the season and will be hoping to end on a high, which was nearly not the case as he came scarily close to a collision with his teammate Lance Stroll in the sprint race in Brazil.
The two Aston Martin drivers were battling down the long straight on the way down to Turn 4 when the German saw the opportunity to pass his teammate to take 11th place, on lap nine of the sprint race.
Stroll initially gave a car width worth of room to his teammate, as per the regulations, but as Vettel made his way past the Canadian he proceeded to move over to his left and squeeze his teammate off the track.
With the rear wing of both drivers open due to the activation of DRS, both drivers were hurtling down the straight at great pace as Vettel was forced half onto the grass in order to avoid a high-speed accident with his teammate.
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Vettel responded by simply saying “OK” over the team radio, as he was clearly confused and frustrated by his teammates defensive techniques.
Stroll was given a ten-second penalty for his actions, which will be very frustrating for Aston Martin who will now see their chances of scoring points reduced for the race on Sunday, as their driver will now start from 17thon the grid.
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The Canadian driver was involved in an almost identical incident with next season’s teammate Fernando Alonso in Austin, as the Spaniard attempted to overtake him down the back straight of the Circuit of the Americas, which also saw him slapped with a penalty.
Aston Martin currently find themselves four points behind Alfa Romeo in the constructor’s championship, and therefore their drivers nearly colliding with each other will come as a narrowly avoided nightmare, at the team only have two races remaining to overtake their championship rivals.
Vettel will still be in with a good chance of scoring points on Sunday and helping his team in their battle with Alfa Romeo, as he promised to before he calls time on his F1 career, and having both Valtteri Bottas and Guanyu Zhou starting outside the top ten will come as further help in the teams battle for sixth place.