Alpine's Esteban Ocon won't hold a grudge against Sebastian Vettel following the pair's run-in in Sunday's Bahrain Grand Prix.
Ocon had just passed the Aston Martin driver on the run down to Turn 1 in the latter part of the race when Vettel misjudged his breaking and slammed into the back of the Alpine, pushing both cars off course.
Both drivers recovered and saw the checkered flag, although well out of the points while Vettel was handed a 10-second time penalty for the ill-fated maneuver.
On Aston's team radio, the German driver initially accused his rival of changing lines before admitting after the race that the blunder was his and apologizing to Ocon.
"I've watched the incident just now," Ocon said after the race. "And you know, he came up to me and apologised and told me he got the penalty.
"He got the penalty for it, so it's all okay. If we were fighting for good points at the time, I would have been more upset clearly."
"I spoke with him straightaway," confirmed Vettel, "and I think we agree so there's not that much to say."
Tempers flared on the airwaves after their collision on Lap 44
But Seb went to find Esteban after the race 👀 🤝 👊#BahrainGP 🇧🇭 #F1 @OconEsteban pic.twitter.com/mJfDL4Dj2J
— Formula 1 (@F1) March 29, 2021
Ocon suspected Vettel was caught out by the dirty air circulating in his Alpine's wake.
"It looks like I stayed on my line, he looks like he got in my dirty air," he said. "So he's moving to the left to the normal line, but he's lost grip, basically.
"That's when he locks up and hits me in the back. So we got a little bit of damage after that. But we managed to finish the race, which, you know, show that we fought until the end for that one."
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