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'I'll talk to Max about Spa', promises Vettel

Sebastian Vettel says that he expects to discuss what happened in the Belgian Grand Prix with Max Verstappen at some point in the future.

Vettel blamed Verstappen for triggering the first corner crash at La Source by lunging down the inside line as Vettel and his team-mate Kimi Raikkonen were approaching the apex.

Raikkonen was sent into the side of Vettel's car which left the four-time world champion with heavy damage for the remainder of the race. All three cars were forced into making earlier pit stops which compromised their races.

DRIVER RATINGS: Belgian Grand Prix

Even so, Vettel wouldn't compare the incident to what happened with Daniil Kvyat at the first turn in China earlier in the season.

"No I don’t think so," he said. "I think it’s different circumstances and different corner as well because it’s a lot more sharper and China is very open."

Vettel also clashed with Verstappen later in the race when he was trying to recover positions, and grew increasingly annoyed with Verstappen's defensive driving.

"I tried to speak to Max but after the race is really not the right time," he continued. "I will try and talk to Max, not now because I think he didn’t have a good day, I didn’t have a good day, Kimi didn’t have a good day.

"But I’m not a fan of penalising people," he added. "It’s not the way to educate, we need to talk to each other, we need to have respect.

"I think there has been a couple of manoeuvres that the rest of the field is not happy with his behaviour.

"The best way to educate and the best way is just to talk rather than create a fuss in the media and try to talk via some other channels. We are men and it’s best to stand in front of each other and talk to each other.

"I think it’s right to criticize, I think it’s wrong to make too much of a story. I get along with him, I like him, he’s aggressive and I think that’s a strength for him, but certain movements especially under braking which I faced when I was racing with him I don’t think are correct.

"He needs to understand in that race there was a lot going on, and in the end it wasn’t the smartest thing to do."

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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.