Lewis Hamilton’s rear wing controversy came to the delight of Aston Martin’s Sebastian Vettel.
Hamilton, a seven-time world champion, was disqualified from this morning’s qualifying session at the Brazilian Grand Prix after a technical infringement.
When Hamilton beat Max Verstappen by more than 0.4 seconds in qualifying for the sprint race, organisers shortly after announced that his Mercedes was under investigation for DRS exceeding the maximum distance when opened.
READ MORE: Kiwis out to bury ‘ghost’ of Australia in T20 World Cup final
Making matters even worse, Verstappen was fined $78,000 by stewards after video taken from the grandstands at Interlagos showed him touching the rear wing of Hamilton’s car in the Parc Ferme — a secure area for cars at the track.
The entire situation came to the amusement of Vettel, who’s also known to Formula One fans as Inspector Seb.
READ MORE: Langer hits back at critics of Warner’s sportsmanship
Vettel has had his fair share of parc ferme controversies and has often been seen taking a closer look at his rivals’ cars. He was famously caught inspecting Hamilton’s Mercedes with his foot in 2018 at the Russian Grand Prix.
“I’m going to touch Hamilton’s rear wing,” Vettel joked while stuck behind Hamilton.
Responding to the cheeky comment, Vettel’s race engineer said, “don’t you dare! Very expensive”.
Vettel replied: “I’ll try the front wing, maybe it’s 25 grand”.
For a daily dose of the best of the breaking news and exclusive content from Wide World of Sports, subscribe to our newsletter by clicking here!