Former F1 driver Christian Danner can’t make heads or tails of Sebastian Vettel saying he has no issues racing cars with unstable rear ends.
Struggling at Ferrari last season, his final year in red, pundits surmised that Vettel’s biggest problem with the SF1000 was its rear end.
The Ferrari had a sensitive rear that the drivers had to work around with Vettel scoring only a third of his team-mate Charles Leclerc’s points.
Moving to Aston Martin, the four-time World Champion downplayed the speculation.
“I feel like this rear end stability discussion has gotten out of hand,” Vettel said.
“If you look at the cars I drove at Red Bull or in my early days at Ferrari, the rear end was sometimes a bit nervous. I don’t think I’m any more vulnerable than anyone else in this area.”
That, though, has left Danner rather confused as he feels it is “obvious” Vettel struggles when the rear end of the car isn’t stable.
Danner told motorsport-magazin.com: “I can’t make sense of the Sebastian at the moment.
“It was obvious that he always had problems with an unstable rear end – either he spun, made a mistake, was slow or everything at the same time.
“Then he said ‘these stupid experts, that’s not true at all’, and he would get along wonderfully with cars that have an unstable rear.”
Finishing a disappointing P15 on his Aston Martin debut, a race weekend in which he failed to make it out of Q1 and then crashed into Esteban Ocon during the grand prix, Danner said: “He just puts the same boot together and makes the same mistakes as last year.
“Either the learning curve is not there or the horse simply gets away with him.”
The German is, however, hoping his compatriot gets it right in the coming races.
“If he manages to do a proper reset, he’ll be able to do it. Sebastian is a great driver. A new race on a new track is already waiting in Imola,” said Danner.
