Seb will pay for selfishness

JENSON BUTTON believes Sebastian Vettel will get “hurt” after his decision to ignore his team’s orders at the Malaysian Grand Prix.

The McLaren ace says he was shocked that the German disobeyed Red Bull principal Christian Horner by overtaking team-mate Mark Webber to win last Sunday’s race.
There have been calls for Vettel to be punished for going against Horner’s instructions and costing Webber the win.
Button believes the three-time world champion’s selfishness will only return to haunt him later in the season.
He said: “We all want to win but Sebastian drives for Red Bull and they have to call the shots. So many times it has worked in his favour.
“I think that will hurt him in the long run. I am surprised he did that.
“I find team orders difficult but to disregard a team order is something different.
“At the start of the race, they knew they had team orders. That’s the bigger issue.
“I am not a fan of giving a driver preferential treatment but the issue here is that Vettel did not want team orders.
“How is he going to give that win back to Mark? I cannot imagine him leading the race and going to Mark and say ‘here you go’.
“That’s very difficult and I could not do that.
“If you are told to save tyres and your team-mate is behind you and he overtakes you, you are going to get annoyed.
“It can cause an issue. Even if they sit down and discuss it, it is not going to change the outcome. It is still in their minds and it does not go away.”
Button has first-hand experience of duelling with a team-mate when he went head-to-head with Lewis Hamilton in Turkey in 2010.
Ironically, Vettel and Webber had already taken each other out of the race when they collided.
And then Button leapfrogged Hamilton late on — although he was unaware his team-mate was told to save fuel.
The two buried the hatchet after the misunderstanding but Button believes the latest case with the two Red Bulls is a different matter altogether.
He added: “Lewis and myself had something like that in Turkey. He was told to turn his engine down but I didn’t know.
“Lewis thought they had told me, so then I overtook him and then Lewis overtook me.
“As soon as we got out of the car we discussed it and when I said that I wasn’t told anything, it was all fine.
“But if you are told to do something by the team and you completed ignore what they said and it cost your team-mate a win - that’s big.”
Button, who was classified in 17th place in Malaysia after retiring three laps from the end, was challenging for fifth spot when his team made a mistake with his pit stop.
Button was allowed to leave the garage despite not having he front right wheel tightened, causing him to stop in the pit lane and he had to be pushed back to the garage.
That effectively ended his race but he was pleased nonetheless to be running in fifth and even leading the race for two laps.
He said: “It was a massive turnaround but we are still not quick enough.
“Most of the race we were quicker than the Lotus and Ferrari — who would have thought that five days ago?
“But we are still not where we want to be. We got a bit lucky with the circuit being smooth, that helped us quite a bit.
“But it is still an improvement and we now need a lot more and have to score some big in China.”