THE TYRES FELT FINE
Sebastian Vettel has had better birthdays than the 29th he marked at the Austrian Grand Prix , even if he could at least enjoy the warm glow of Germany ’ s Euro 2016 soccer prowess over Italy the day before .
The Ferrari driver , who started ninth after a fiveplace penalty for a gearbox change , crashed out when his right rear tyre exploded at speed on the pit straight while he was leading following pitstops for others .
The day before the German had cheerfully refused a birthday present of an Italian soccer shirt , suggesting the television reporter who offered it might need it to wipe away her tears after the quarter-final in France . Germany went on to win in a penalty shoot-out .
There were no tears in the Ferrari ranks at the Red Bull Ring on Sunday , only relief that the blowout had no serious consequences .
“ I didn ’ t feel anything , or rather , I felt it when it was too late and it exploded out of the blue . There were no signs before that , everything was normal ,” said the four-times champion .
“ I spoke with people on the pit wall and everything looked the same , the pace was the same as the lap before , the tyres felt fine , lap times were fine . It ’ s completely a question mark on why the tyre had the failure .”
Pirelli said the circumstances of the failure , which brought out the safety car after the Ferrari skewed into the pit wall and then back across the track , were being investigated but it appeared to be an isolated incident .
Vettel denied Ferrari had adopted an aggressive strategy , even if the plan was to go for as long as possible on the supersoft tyre .
He had done 27 laps at the time of the failure .