Vettel ‘took care’ over bumps prior to suspension failure

Sebastian Vettel insists he did nothing different when running over the bumps at the Circuit of the Americas after retiring from the United States Grand Prix with suspension failure.

The Ferrari driver suffered a suspension failure on the right rear of his SF90 when he ran wide over the kerbs at Turn 8 on the eighth lap of Sunday’s race in Austin.

Vettel, who struggled with understeer in the opening laps and dropped down the order, immediately retired due to the damage while running seventh in the order.

“There was very poor grip in the first lap, I had to let a lot of cars by, and I struggled really to get the car to work, especially in right-hand corners,” Vettel explained.

“And some laps in, the suspension failed over the bump in Turn 9. But I’ve done nothing different to the previous laps and the whole weekend.

“I’ve been taking a lot of care the whole weekend. I didn’t do anything different to the whole weekend, but surely something broke, so something didn’t last.”

The bumps at COTA had proved a controversial topic throughout the weekend, with drivers labelling the state of the track surface as "totally unacceptable". 

Asked if he felt any contact at the start, Vettel replied: “No I had no contact, but I just wanted to make sure they go through the footage again.

“I just had really, really poor grip, struggled to get the tyres to work, and had a poor feeling with the car straightaway.

“It took some laps to get the tyres up to work, and from there, I was just about settling into a rhythm. I still had issues in right hand corners mostly, but I obviously had to get used to it, and then the suspension failed.”