Sebastian Vettel suspects yellow flag was withdrawn at end of Q3 “because Max was on hot lap”

Four-time World Champion and Aston Martin driver Sebastian Vettel believes a yellow flag was cancelled at the end of qualifying in order to allow Max Verstappen to complete his final flying lap.

Video clips from the end of Q3 appeared to show Verstappen sighting an illuminated yellow flag board as he exited the final corner on his last timed lap. The Red Bull driver is now under investigation for failing to slow sufficiently in response to the signal.

Vettel said he was happy with his qualifying performance but believes he could have done better if he hadn’t had to slow down for yellow flags on his final lap.

“I’m pretty happy,” said the Aston Martin driver. “We out-qualified a Red Bull, Ferrari and McLaren, so I think we can be happy with that.

“It’s a bit of a shame because I had the yellow flag in the last sector and then the yellow flag cleared, I guess, because Max was coming.”

Vettel doubted he “could have made a huge jump” if he had been able to complete his lap. “It was just a bit disappointing to have the yellow flag.”

Meanwhile, Verstappen improved by a tenth of a second on his final flying lap despite the waved yellows, though not by enough to displace Lewis Hamilton from pole position for tomorrow’s race.

“We discuss about the rules all year long, sometimes it is like this or like that, I got a harsh penalty although I haven‘t seen a yellow flag in Bahrain . I don’t know if it was a single yellow or double yellow, but if there’s a car standing on track, then it should be a double yellow, and double yellows are ‘abort the lap’ so I aborted my lap, not sure what happened behind me.”