Vettel gets eye patch: "Monaco not as much fun with one eye as with two"

During the second free practice Sebastian Vettel complained on the radio about a 'bleeding eye'. Luckily this was not the case, but his watery eye caused a lot of discomfort. His team was kind enough to make an eye patch for him.

Eye strain

"It feels like my eye is bleeding," it sounded on the on-board radio. "It's OK, I'm going to keep going", Vettel said moments later."Either I'm super emotional or there's something stuck in my eye". Speaking to Sky Sports after free practice, Vettel explained more about the situation. "I've never suffered from a bleeding eye, but it felt a bit. I don't know what was going on. On the first run something got in my eye and on the second run it got worse."

Vettel appeared before the cameras wearing an eye patch. His Aston Martin crew had made a paper eye patch for him as a joke. "So the team was quite nice and they made this for me. I think I'm going to keep it. It will keep me safe for the rest of the weekend." Asked what it was like to drive around Monaco with one eye, Vettel joked, "I don't recommend it. It's not as much fun as with two eyes."

Satisfied feeling

Despite his teary eye, Vettel finished tenth in free practice and was two tenths faster than teammate Lance Stroll. "I was quite satisfied today, we got into the rhythm quickly. In the afternoon I lost the overview a bit, but overall it's okay. Ideally, we can keep that up. It's all about Saturday afternoon."