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It was a feeling of deja vu for Ferrari fans watching at home and in Suzuka as Sebastian Vettel failed to keep his head while trying to get past Max Verstappen in the early stages of the Japanese Grand Prix.
Vettel, who started ninth after a disastrous qualifying session, began strongly and made it to fourth before fighting it out with Verstappen for track position. A poorly calculated overtaking move, however, resulted in the German colliding with the Dutchman and spinning off track and falling to the 18th place as a consequence.
Vettel should probably consider himself lucky that he escaped further punishment as he could easily have been handed a time penalty at the very least for a dangerous move on Verstappen, similar to what the youngster received after momentarily going off track while being pursued by Kimi Raikkonen.
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The incident between Verstappen and Vettel may have been the highlight, but Mercedes put on a show yet again and Lewis Hamilton strolled to victory with Valtteri Bottas fighting off the late challenge of Verstappen to bring home second place. Social media has been buzzing since the end of the race, and most of them have been openly critical about the reckless driving style of Sebastian Vettel while others have praised the calmness of Hamilton, who has consistently been the top man under pressure and has now opened up a whopping 67-point lead over his closest challenger in Vettel himself.
The German later defended his decision to try and overtake Verstappen when he did, but the Dutchman clearly had a different take on the move just as was expected. Nonetheless, Ferrari have been left to lick their wounds after another difficult outing, and Twitter has reacted in the only way it knows how. Take a look at some interesting tweets after the Japanese GP:
