Aftermath of Hamilton Baku clash Vettel's 'worst feeling' of 2017

The aftermath of his controversial collision with Lewis Hamilton in the Azerbaijan Grand Prix was Sebastian Vettel's "worst feeling" of the 2017 Formula 1 season.

Vettel was penalised and widely condemned for deliberately driving into Hamilton's Mercedes as they prepared for a safety-car restart in Baku, having felt his F1 title rival had brake-tested him.

Ultimately Vettel still outscored Hamilton in Azerbaijan as he recovered from his penalty to fourth while a pitstop to fix a headrest problem left Hamilton fifth.

But Vettel said Baku was still more painful to him than more costly 2017 blows such as his Singapore GP start crash or the early engine failure in Japan.

"The worst feeling I had was after Baku," said Vettel when asked by Autosport what his lowest post-race feeling of the season had been.

"I struggled with that.

"Then you would probably refer to other races such as Singapore or Japan.

"Singapore, my point of view is that's it's racing. I thought about it a lot on Sunday night and it wasn't easy to put behind, but then, what do you do? Same in Japan.

"Sometimes things are not in your hands and you have to move forward.

"I think you struggle a lot more in life with things that you messed up rather than got messed up for you."

Vettel picked his and Raikkonen's one-two in the Monaco GP, Ferrari's first win there since Michael Schumacher's in 2001, are the season's highlight.

"Winning in Monaco is always special and it's been a while since Ferrari won in Monaco," said Vettel, who had previously triumphed there with Red Bull in 2011.

"It was a one-two as well so a very good memory."

He felt there were races in 2017 where he and Ferrari had not had the acclaim their performances actually deserved.

"There were races where we could have done better," Vettel said. "There were races where I could have done better, but there were also races where we should have done a lot worse, and we didn't.

"Obviously some of the races get highlighted and you get a lot of praise for it.

"Other times you get a lot of the opposite but that's part of the game.

"The most important thing is for us to understand where we are weak and where we are strong."