Horner says collision between Verstappen and Vettel was "inevitable"

Christian Horner claims the crash between his former driver and his current driver was "inevitable" as soon as Vettel went for the "optimistic" move. The collision ruined Vettel's race as he was left stationary for some time. Max Verstappen had damage to his car which hampered his final pursuit of Valtteri Bottas in the dying stages of the Japanese Grand Prix.

The drivers blamed each other, but the stewards labelled the crash as a racing incident. Horner, boss at Red Bull felt the Stewards made the right call.

“I think it was a bit optimistic and I think the right result from the stewards happened,” Horner told Channel 4.

“I think he came from quite a way back and it is quick there with no big breaking in the corner and with Max you know he is not going to give an inch so the outcome, unfortunately, was inevitable when that happened.

“You could see a few bits came off so aerodynamically we lost a reasonable percentage of load, so he had to move his tools around to try to compensate for that."

Vettel has all but mathematically lost his fight for the World Championship. Hamilton just needs to score eight more points than Vettel in Sochi to be crowned champion. But it won't be this incident that defines the result.