Categories: F1 News, Reports and Race ResultsFerrari

Arrivabene refuses to point finger at Vettel

Maurizio Arrivabene does not blame Sebastian Vettel for the collision between the two Ferrari drivers at the start of the Chinese Grand Prix.

Vettel reacted to Daniil Kvyat passing him on the inside of Turn 1 by swerving left and hitting team-mate Kimi Raikkonen, tipping the Finn in to a spin and breaking his front wing. The clash hit the team's hopes of challenging for victory and although Vettel blamed Kvyat for triggering the incident, team principal Arrivabene says it was a racing incident.

“I think it was an accident, these are things that are part of the race but of course when you have your two drivers crashing with each other, it’s not good," Arrivabene said. "What can I say more than that?”

Asked if he thinks Vettel was too aggressive, Arrivabene replied: “I think pointing the finger at somebody is not correct.

"Yes Kvyat was doing his race, coming into the kerb at high speed but I think that Seb and Kimi were doing the same in the Kvyat position. Now of course if you want to defend your position you move away and unfortunately Kimi was there but I mean this is racing, it’s not monopoly.”

REPORT: Rosberg cruises home ahead of chaos in China

Chinese Grand Prix lap-by-lap as it happened

Eric Silbermann has breakfast with photographer Crispin Thruston

Keep up to date with all the F1 news via Facebook and Twitter

Andrew Lewin

Andrew first became a fan of Formula 1 during the time when Michael Schumacher and Damon Hill were stepping into the limelight after the era of Alain Prost, Nigel Mansell and Aryton Senna. He's been addicted ever since, and has been writing about the sport now for nearly a quarter of a century for a number of online news sites. He's also written professionally about GP2 (now Formula 2), GP3, IndyCar, World Rally Championship, MotoGP and NASCAR. In his other professional life, Andrew is a freelance writer, social media consultant, web developer/programmer, and digital specialist in the fields of accessibility, usability, IA, online communities and public sector procurement. He worked for many years in magazine production at Bauer Media, and for over a decade he was part of the digital media team at the UK government's communications department. Born and raised in Essex, Andrew currently lives and works in south-west London.