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Vettel suspects yellow flag was withdrawn at end of Q3 “because
Max was coming”
Sebastian Vettel believes a yellow flag was cancelled at the end
of qualifying in order to allow Max Verstappen to complete his
final flying lap.
Footage from the end of Q3 appeared to show Verstappen sighting an
illuminated yellow flag board as he exited the final corner on
his last timed lap. The Red Bull driver is now under investigation
for failing to slow sufficiently in response to the signal.
Vettel said he was happy with his qualifying performance but
believes he could have done better if he hadn’t had to slow down
for yellow flags on his final lap.
“I’m pretty happy,” said the Aston Martin driver. “We
out-qualified a Red Bull, Ferrari and McLaren, so I think we can
be happy with that.
“It’s a bit of a shame because I had the yellow flag in the last
sector and then the yellow flag cleared, I guess, because Max was
coming.”
Vettel doubted he “could have made a huge jump” if he had been
able to complete his lap. “It was just a bit disappointing to
have the yellow flag.”
Vettel did not improve from his best lap time of 1’22.785, as a
yellow flag was waved near the start-finish line when Gasly’s
stricken AlphaTauri came to a stop off of the racing line.
Meanwhile, Verstappen improved by a tenth of a second on his final
flying lap despite the waved yellows, though not by enough to
displace Lewis Hamilton from pole position for tomorrow’s race.
“I don’t know if it was a single yellow or double yellow, but if
there’s a car standing on track, then it should be a double
yellow – and double yellows are ‘abort the lap’ so I lifted,”
Vettel added. “Maybe I was the only one.”
This was the first time that Vettel had reached Q3 in the Aston
Martin-Mercedes since the Belgian Grand Prix, where he qualified
fifth.