Sebastian insists that he wasn’t disappointed to lose pole to Nico Rosberg in Bahrain – perhaps on the assumption that as in China, Mercedes won’t be able to back up its qualifying form on race day.
“I’m definitely not disappointed,” said Vettel. “Initially when I crossed the line I saw that I didn’t go first, so I saw second placed on one of the screens, but I didn’t know how much was missing, because the lap was fine.
“You always a little bit here or there but, yeah, when I got told the gap to P1, to Nico, it was clear that even with the perfect lap he was unbeatable today. But nevertheless, I’m very happy. I think we managed to save some tyres throughout qualifying.
“It will be all about tyres and tyre degradation tomorrow, once again. So, we’ll see what happens but for sure it’s good to start from the front.”
Red Bull has saved extra hard tyres relative to the opposition, but Vettel was coy about the team’s strategic plans.
“To be honest with you, I don’t know how many stops we have to do. I think you don’t have to be a genius… One stop is impossible for everybody, two stops is impossible for most, I think, and then it’s between three and four stops. I think we decided to do what we did because we think it’s the best way.
“In qualifying we were not exactly sure how quick we would be. We didn’t want to take any risks, we wanted to make sure that we finish in front and we believed that the soft tyre was faster, or the medium tyre, so we went for that in qualifying.”
Adam Cooper F1 