Nico Rosberg believes Sebastian Vettel's auto-inflicted demise in Sunday's German Grand Prix will turn out to be one of the Ferrari driver's worst moments in his F1 career.
After dominating proceedings at the outset in Hockenheim, Vettel had to contend with the changing conditions and sporadic rain.
The four-time world champion appeared to remain in control of the event until he suddenly careered off in the stadium section on lap 51 of 67, his race and championship lead destroyed.
"I think he’s going to remember that as one of the darkest moments of his whole career," Rosberg said in his post-race Vlog posted on Youtube.
"In front of his home crowd here with such a chance to get a huge points haul over Lewis, he puts it away like that."
"Such a big mistake – he threw it away."
Rosberg suggested that Vettel's comfortable margin should have warranted a bit more caution when conditions got tricky.
"Yes, the conditions are difficult out there and it’s horrible for the driver, so tough, but he had a gap to the guys behind," said the 2016 World Champion.
"He could have gone a little bit slower and taken it easy, but he chucked it into the wall.
"That’s the one corner where there’s no margin for error, so in that corner you’ve got to take even more reserves, and he didn’t. He went over the edge."
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