• Austrian GP

Vettel made 'tactical retirement'

ESPN Staff
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Red Bull made a "tactical retirement" with Sebastian Vettel's car in order to save engine mileage after an electrical problem ruined his race on lap two.

The issue caused Vettel to lose power and he dropped a lap down as a result. He then had contact with Esteban Gutierrez which required a new front wing and Red Bull called him into the pits soon after.

"We did it to conserve engine mileage," Christian Horner explained. "Obviously engines are fairly limited this year and it gives us the opportunity to run a bit more on Fridays. So it was a tactical retirement, which is within the regulations. Being a lap and a half down, it didn't make sense to just put unnecessary mileage on the engine."

Vettel added: "We were hoping for a safety car but it wasn't coming. Obviously, it has been a bad first half of the season with a few retirements and other problems, but I guess it's part of the game. Equally we were able to learn a lot today and it's good that Daniel [Ricciardo] got some points for us.

"It would be bad to say I got used to it, but obviously we have had a lot of problems so far already and I got calmer when the problem occurred. Our pace looked alright and we were able to go quite far on the soft tyre, but we were a lap down so in the end we decided to save some mileage."

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