Vettel explains ‘bleeding eye’ comment

Sebastian Vettel has explained what he meant when he said it felt like one of his eyes was “bleeding” during practice for the Monaco Grand Prix, a comment which prompted Aston Martin to make him a joke eye patch to wear for the rest of the week.

While driving the famously narrow and twisty Monte Carlo circuit on Thursday, Vettel told the team he had something stuck in his eye.

He said over the radio: “It feels like my eye is bleeding, man! I don’t know what…

“It’s alright. I’ll carry on.

“Either I’m super emotional or there’s something stuck in my eye!”

Vettel, a winner of the Monaco Grand Prix in 2011 and 2017, later explained what had been bothering him.

Asked about the message, he said: “Well, not like bleeding, more like tearing up a lot.

“That’s why I said, ‘I must be feeling emotional’, because there were tears and more tears, so I was blinking the whole lap – not ideal on a track like this.”

He then revealed the team had made him an eye patch for the rest of the weekend, with Monaco 2.1 written on it.

“The team was quite nice and quickly produced an eye patch, so I think I’ll keep using it for the rest of the weekend,” Vettel said, laughing as he put it on in the TV pen following the session.

The Monaco Grand Prix is live on ESPN2 at 8.55AM on May 23.