At Silverstone Sebastian Vettel was highly criticised after his 16th place finish at the British Grand Prix and yet Lewis Hamilton claims that he still considers him one of the “greats of sport”. 

The crash caused by Sebastian Vettel was probably the hottest topic after last weekend’s race. The Ferrari driver had driven into Max Verstappen in an overtaking attempt, both of them ended up in the gravel. It was a remarkably similar incident to the Baku crash with Ricciardo last year, Verstappens team mate at the time. 

Verstappen managed to rescue himself to fifth place, Vettel finished a very poor 16th. Lewis Hamilton, winner of the British race, doesn’t want to write off his long-time rival Vettel despite the disappointing season so far for the Ferrari driver.

“He is one of the greats of this sport. He’ll come back stronger, I’m convinced of that,” said the reigning Formula 1 World Champion after his convincing home victory: “That’s what great athletes do – and he is one of them.”

Hamilton already has a 100-point advantage over fourth-placed Vettel in the drivers classification after ten of 21 races. But he doesn’t miss the close duels with Vettel saying: “I’m not the type for that. Maybe I miss my dogs or things like that.”

However, he wishes for “the fight with Ferrari or other opponents”. At the moment his Finnish team mate rival Valtteri Bottas is the only realistic challenger for Hamilton in a season yet again dominated by Mercedes. “It’s different to fight your teammates. But it’s just like that right now,” said Hamilton.

Hamilton can win his sixth World Championship title this year, and is very likely to do so with the astonishing stats that of ten races he has won seven so far. Vettel, on the other hand, is still waiting for his first victory of the season and summarised his previous year 2019 in just one word: “Difficult”.

The man from Heppenheim finished only 16th in Great Britain after an accident for which he was to blame and for the first time in almost a year without race points.

Hamilton, on the other hand, is not only on his way to the title but is also on a record hunt. Mercedes team boss Toto Wolff believes his favoured driver can beat the previous Formula 1 records of former world champion Michael Schumacher.

“It’s hard, but he’s on the right track,” said Wolff after Hamilton’s 80th career victory. The 34-year-old only needs eleven Grand Prix victories to catch up with Schumacher. Schumacher’s 91 triumphs have so far been way out of sight for many drivers until this era of continued Mercedes dominance.