Team boss stands up for Vettel: 'No reward without risks'

Sebastian Vettel was the only driver in the Turkish Grand Prix who dared to go out on dry weather tyres. It was not a great success, as the four-time world champion came in for a new set of intermediates just one lap later. The choice for mediums cost Vettel a total of 50 seconds, but team principal Otmar Szafnauer has protected his driver.

"He wanted to take a gamble, we didn't say no. Seb spoke over the radio and said, 'I want different tyres, put the mediums on,' and we didn't contradict him. We did what he said. It happened quite quickly, so we didn't argue with him too much," Szafnauer said in an interview with Motorsport.com.

Aston Martin will not do things differently

At Aston Martin, the policy is to let the drivers decide what they want in situations like this."With drying track conditions as was the case here, it's the driver's call. And we will continue to do that," said the German. "If he says it can be done, who are we to contradict it? But I think this was not normal, it's a different track on wet."

Szafnauer then goes on to calculate that not only did Vettel lose 20 seconds compared to the competition due to his extra pit stop, but on his only lap on the mediums, he was also 30 seconds slower than the rest of the field. "That killed him. But if it had worked out and he had finished fourth or on the podium, we would have been happy. So without taking risks you won't be rewarded easily either."