Azerbaijan GP driver reaction: Lewis Hamilton labels Sebastian Vettel a 'disgrace'

I control the pace, all the other restarts I slowed down at the same spot. He lost concentration and hit me, that wasn’t for me the issue. Driving alongside and deliberately driving into someone is a disgrace. If he wants to prove he is a man, do it out of the car face to face. Driving into a car could put someone at risk. Imagine all the kids watching today and seeing that from a four times world champion. It is just not driver conduct. Dangerous driving, 10 second penalty for that sort of thing? Nah…

It was quite obvious. I didn't run into the back of him on purpose. I damaged my wing, I think he had a little bit of damage as well. Nothing that would have impacted on the race. It's just not the way to do it. He's done it a couple of times. Afterwards his restart was really good. He surprised me and jumped me, so I don't think it was necessary. The problem is with me right behind, getting ready and all the other cars, then there's a chain reaction. He did something similar a couple of years ago in China at a restart. It's just not the way to do it. We're all grown-ups, we're men. Emotions are running high in the car. We want to race wheel to wheel, but not when it's [before] the restart.

It was a race that in normal circumstances we should have won. Because I was with [race winner Daniel] Ricciardo when the first safety car came out. Hamilton lost his headrest, Vettel was penalised, both the Force Indias were out, Kimi retired... So you are automatically in the top two or three, so we should have fought for victory, but unfortunately we are not in that position.

I had it last year when I had the perfect year and this year when I had some tough times. I am just happy with myself. It is all just noise in the background, I don't care. I am a bit lost for words. It was such an intense race, a crazy race, and so much happened, the red flag and hopping out the car and hopping back in and having to reset. It happened so quickly. Today where we did well was to stay out of trouble, let some other drivers make mistakes and get to the end. I can't describe how I feel, it is beyond amazing. Yesterday was quite amazing already, I had a few races where Saturdays didn't go well and got back into Q3 for first time since China, so today to get the podium is absolutely amazing. Sometimes jumping F3 to F1 is quite big and it took time to try to understand.