Vettel Takes Full Responsibility for Sending Button Out

As we reported, today’s Spa race was dominated by incidents. One of the most important was Sebastian Vettel’s collision with Jenson Button, which resulted in the latter being sent out.

Vettel admitted that the blame belongs to him and apologized for taking the World Champion out.

Red Bull’s Vettel attempted to overtake Button on the final chicane during lap 16 when he lost control and crashed into the side of the McLaren driver’s car. The first only got a broken front wing and was able to re-enter the race, while the latter was forced to quit.

"First of all, I'm sorry," Vettel said after the race. "Obviously it was not my intention to destroy his race or mine. I was close, I was faster than him. The moment Robert [Kubica] got close behind I knew that he could pass us on the straight because we are not the fastest on the straight. I was very close a couple of times, unfortunately never really close enough,”

"I tried to out-brake him on the outside. When I changed from the inside to the outside, I lost the car under braking on the bump and then I couldn't really control it anymore and unfortunately crashed into him," he explained.

Vettel received a drive-through penalty for causing the incident and later on sustained a puncture after making contact with Tonio Liuzzi’s Force India. As if that wasn’t enough, he then made the wrong tire choice for the final rain shower. After five pitstops, he only managed to finish the race in 15th place.