Sebastian Vettel was furious with Daniil Kvyat

SEBASTIAN Vettel was absolutely furious with Daniil Kvyat after the Chinese Grand Prix, and he wasn’t shy in letting him know about it.

F1 Grand Prix of China

SEBASTIAN Vettel may have stood on the podium after Sunday’s Chinese Grand Prix, but he wasn’t a happy man.

A frenetic opening resulted in the German crashing into Ferrari teammate Kimi Raikkonen, sending him off the track. Raikkonen had to head back to the pit to get his damaged car seen to, costing him the chance to have a real crack at winning. He ended up coming fifth.

Vettel was extremely apologetic for making contact with his Finnish comrade, but believes the accident was all the fault of Red Bull driver Daniil Kvyat.

He thought Kvyat was too ambitious in trying to speed through a narrow opening on his inside, causing him to veer sharply to the left and bump the other Ferrari on the grid.

“Kvyat’s attack was suicidal, there was no way he could have made the corner with that speed,” Vettel said on the radio as the race ended.

“There was always going to be a crash.”

It wasn’t always smooth sailing for Ferrari.

Vettel took Kvyat to task when the top three finishers were in a room waiting to walk out and collect their bottles of champagne on the podium, making sure the Russian knew he was to blame for the chaotic opening.

But the criticism just washed over an unapologetic Kvyat.

Sebastian Vettel: You, at the start, why the hell did you go to the left? You crashed into us. You came like a torpedo.

Daniil Kvyat: I was racing.

SV: You’ll crash if you do it like that.

DK: Well we didn’t crash.

SV: Yeh, you didn’t. You didn’t. I was racing. You need to explain when you attack like a crazy (person) and you damage the car. You were lucky this time.

Apart from his angst over the incident that distorted his plans just seconds into the race, the four-time world champion was pleased with the end result.

Kvyat couldn’t care less about Vettel’s concerns.

“I was just pushing to try to get the best gap possible. I’m glad that it worked out so well,” said Vettel.

“Disappointed that I made contact in lap one. Lucky that the car was still intact.

“We had a different strategy from most people with the super-soft tyre, which helped me to clear the traffic and make progress. It was good fun.”

Nico Rosberg claimed his third consecutive win of 2016 to maintain his place atop the Drivers Championship, while Aussie Daniel Ricciardo overcame some early struggles to come in a respectable fourth.

The 26-year-old escaped the carnage off the grid to race to the front of the pack, but he punctured a tyre on lap four, cruelling his chances of a top-three finish.

Lewis Hamilton — starting at the very back of the grid — made up considerable ground to come seventh after he too went to the pits early on with car trouble.