Ferrari rubbishes Kvyat’s double hit excuses

Having hit Vettel's rear under braking for Turn 2, Kvyat then punted his German rival in to a spin going through Turn 3, the Ferrari ending up hitting the barriers and retiring on the spot.

And although the Red Bull driver had claimed that Vettel slowing down suddenly had contributed to the situation, Arrivabene said it was totally wrong to apportion any blame to his driver.

He also said it was rubbish to suggest that telemetry data could point to there being a problem with Vettel's car.

“Of course he slowed down – what does he have to do, fly?” said Arrivabene. “And measuring the telemetry is not right, [because] we need to look at the situation.

“I understand [the need] to be intelligent but we have to be smart sometimes. If we look at the images it is quite clear.

“Sebastian said to me that he [Kvyat] touched him one time, just a clip, and the second time was quite hard.

“Of course if you have a crash like this and you slow down, it doesn't mean if you slow down that you have to hit him another time. We don't need the telemetry to understand that.

“I promised all of you [media] the first time I was working here to be always transparent and honest.

“So last time in China I was not complaining about Kvyat, I said Kvyat has done his job. This time I think I cannot find any reason for what has happened.”

Phone call

It has emerged that Kvyat spoke to Vettel on the telephone after the Russian Grand Prix – although it is unclear exactly how their conversation went.

However, speaking after their chat, Kvyat had confidence that the situation between himself and Vettel was now sorted.

“I've told everything that I had to the people that I needed to talk to. Called the people I needed to call. And we discussed everything,” he said.

“I think now people will take joy in talking about this. Let them talk. I know I've made a mistake, I will learn from it. 

"The consequences for the mistake are that the team didn't score the points it could have. 

"But I think this will be left behind and this incident is over. We've discussed it already. It's only human to make mistakes like these.”