Formula One’s final trip to Sepang International Circuit not only produced an exciting race, but also a memorable cool-down lap.
Sebastian Vettel’s car was damaged during the in-lap, but rather than expend more energy walking back to the pits, he hitched a ride with fellow German driver Pascal Wehrlein.
The Scuderia Ferrari driver was left marooned on the track after a bizarre collision with Lance Stroll broke his left-rear suspension, and possibly damaged his gearbox. Stroll had tried to move to the right to pickup rubber from the dirty part of the track without realizing Vettel was alongside him doing just that.
Wehrlein’s season hasn’t gone according to plan, as he missed the first two races due to injuries he sustained when he flipped a Polaris Slingshot SLR during Race of Champions, and he recorded a DNF in Monaco after his car was upended by Jenson Button. As a result, helping Vettel get back to the pits might be the highlight of his year thus far — and it seemingly also showed him he has a bright future as an Uber driver.
Many fans noticed that the ride-along was reminiscent of the one Fernando Alonso gave to Mark Webber in 2013 that resulted in the stewards reprimanding Webber. On that occasion, however, Webber’s penalty was for flagging Alonso down and re-entered the track without permission from the marshals, rather than for the ride itself.
