“Into Turn One, I was very close to Seb [Vettel], I went for the gap, I out-braked him and we went into the corner side-by-side. He gave me room, but we touched and the contact damaged my front wing.
“When the Safety Car came out, the team did a great job to change the nosebox and tyres. After that my pace was much better and I was able to push Seb, but it’s impossible to pass around here when the cars are so closely matched.
“Whenever a Safety Car comes out, it’s difficult to compute all the information. There are all these beeps in your ear, and lights flashing on your dashboard too. There’s got to be a certain time between the ‘Safety Car 1’ line and the ‘Safety Car 2’ line, and between those two lines you can go fast. So it’s all a bit complicated.
“So I pushed past the last Safety Car line, and was obviously then trying to close the gap to Seb. But as I came out of the first corner, all of a sudden I saw the Safety Car coming out, so I backed off and went across the line as I did that, so I thought I was okay.
“When the team told me I had a drive-through penalty, I made time by pushing as hard as I could, and was able to increase the gap a bit to the guys behind. I took my penalty – it’s quite a long time to spend at 60km/h in the pitlane – and I came out second. I don’t see how that’s unfair – it’s racing, and those are the rules, and we all have to accept them.”
