Tag Archives: vettel

Sebastian Vettel failed to make it out of Q2 in Bahrain today after experiencing a downshift problem – although the German also conceded that he hadn’t got the most out of the car.

His day started badly when he spun into a gravel trap in FP3. While the car was not stuck the engine cut as the anti-stall system failed to react properly, so he lost most of the session.

Vettel ended up in 11th place in Q2, but he will start 10th thanks to team mate Daniel Ricciardo’s penalty.

“On my final run we had some issued with the downshifts, which upset the balance,” he said. “It was the only shot I had in Q2. It was quite close. Good for Kimi who was 10th, and bad for me who was 11th at that stage. Couple of reasons why – I think at the end I wasn’t able to extract 100% out of the car.

“For some reason from one to the other, from the final run in Q1 to Q2 something went wrong and we couldn’t fix it in time, so I had to do the lap compromised. How much it affected the lap is difficult to measure, but surely it was no help the car behaviour wasn’t the way I wanted it or the way I expected it. But I’m not a fan of blaming something in particular. For sure that didn’t help, without it probably yes, I would have made it to Q3, but still it was not the session that we wanted to have this evening.”

Vettel said he also had a wastegate issue that he said cost a bit of performance on the straights. Despite his disappointment, he believes he can make progress in the race.

“I think yes, It depends who I have to overtake! But it’s always possible. I hope we find the right strategy to make sure we can use the pace of the car. I think once we are in free air we should be fine, but obviously it’s a bit easier to be in free air when you start from pole, rather than 10th or 11th.”

He was also encouraged by Ricciardo’s qualifying pace: “I think he did what he could and he did what the car could do. If you look at the gap from there, it’s quite big. It obviously it helps him because it puts him 13th I think tomorrow, which is a lot better than starting further back. It’s a shame because otherwise he could have been P3 on the grid. We felt already in testing that it’s a difficult track for us, we are down on power, and around here you need some power – that’s how it is. I think for tomorrow nevertheless I think we have a chance to put the car in a fairly good place in the points.”

Just a few weeks ago everyone was writing off Sebastian Vettel’s chances of winning a fifth World Championship in 2014, but his first podium of the year in Malaysia showed that he cannot be counted out yet.

Vettel lost out to Nico Rosberg at the start, but he kept his fellow German in his sights on his way to a reliable third place. It was the first time that he had logged a race distance in the RB10.

“I thought I had a good start but then I focused on getting in the tow of Lewis, to maybe attack him going into the first corner.” said Vettel. “Then Nico was there on the right and it was quite tight. Daniel was coming as well as I was trying to get past Nico. So I lost a place, but fortunately I got it back, and then later on I was trying to get as close as I could to Nico.

“At some stage it looked like we are pretty similar, pretty evenly matched but then it’s like he found another gear, he was pulling away. In the end I was just trying to get the car home. Obviously Daniel didn’t make it, for a couple of reasons. All in all it’s good to get another podium after Daniel has been on the podium in Australia.”

Vettel cautioned that it was hard to read too much into the 25.5s deficit to winner Hamilton at the flag: “Probably Lewis could have gone faster. I think we could have gone faster at the end of the race, but our priority at the end was to make sure we secure the podium.”

However, he admitted there was a lot of work to do.

“We need to make big steps, because they are quite far ahead, but I’m quite happy with the steps we’re currently making. It’s the first race distance I’ve done this year, since Brazil, it’s the first race distance I’ve done, so that’s a big step. Obviously, at some stage during testing, we didn’t expect to finish the first couple of races, so well done to all the guys in the team on the reliability front.

“In terms of driveability we’re not yet there where we want to be. In terms of power, it’s not a big secret without giving a hammering but the guys at Viry are flat out to work on that front.

“Renault is pushing very very hard but at this stage we have to summarise and say that Mercedes did a better job, they’re quicker than us so we know that there’s a lot of things we have to do better but it’s still a bloody good result today, finishing on the podium, right behind them. That’s what we need to do, as long as we can, up to the point where we’re even and we can challenge them and give them a harder time.”

Sebastian Vettel caused a stir today by joining in the throng of criticism of the sound made by the 2014 power units.

The German was able to watch the Australian GP from the pits after his early retirement, and thus had a proper chance to form an opinion.

“It’s shit,” said Vettel when asked in Sepang today. “I think we have to [change it]. I was on the pit wall during the race. It’s better than in a bar! That’s my opinion. I think for the fans it’s not good. I think F1 has to be spectacular, and the sound is one of the most important things.

“I remember when I was a small child, I don’t remember much, but the first time I was about five years old, six years old when we went to see the cars live during free practice in Germany. The one thing I remember was the sound, how loud the cars actually were, and to feel the cars through the ground. The whole ground was vibrating. It’s a shame that we don’t have that any more.”

Later when speaking in German Vettel said that he would rather have a V12, and that batteries are for mobile phone, and not F1 cars.

Meanwhile Jenson Button had a few words for any drivers criticising the current rules.

“Go and race something else if you’re not happy,” said Jenson. “As drivers we don’t have an opinion where the cars are in terms of sound and feel. When you’ve crossed the finish line first and you’ve won a Grand Prix, you don’t care what it sounds or what it feels like. You’ve beaten the best in the world, and that’s what you care about.”

Sebastian Vettel insists that he hasn’t given up hope of challenging for a fifth World Championship this year – and believes that Red Bull still has enough time to catch up after its bad start in testing.

However he also conceded that the team still has a lot of work to do.

“It’s a long year,” he said today. “Our pre-season testing, our preparation, hasn’t been ideal and, yeah, we’re probably not in the best position for this race but I think it’s a different story when we think about the championship. There’s a long way to go. Two years back Fernando was on the grid with 1.5 seconds to pole position but he was very close to beating us to the title at the very last race. Anything can happen. That’s why this race is important, just as any other one. But there are a lot of races this year.

“It’s obviously a tough step for all the teams, all the drivers, a lot of new things to get used to. We know that obviously we’re not in the best shape yet. There are a lot of things we need to solve. Unfortunately, you can’t solve them overnight. We’d love to but we can’t. So you really have to go step by step, together with Daniel, I think just trying to be as precise as we can, trying to give the engineers the best feedback possible about the whole power unit so that we move forward on that and also talking about the car because at this stage it’s a bit unknown where we are.

“It’s not a secret: you need very, very strong reliability to be a title contender, so we’ll see… I’m looking forward to tomorrow and especially Sunday to get a feel for the new regulations and see where we are.”

Vettel says that the team has already changed a lot on the RB10 since the last test in Bahrain.

“I think it will be a very different car. Obviously, for us, we had a lot of problems during the test so we didn’t get to test a lot of stuff and we hope we do some more running here and obviously put the parts to the car that we think are better for overall performance. It will be a bit different but I think it’s the same for all of us.

“The target, for sure, is to finish and the target for sure is to finish in the best possible position, so that’s the mind-set, fairly straightforward and for the rest of the year, I think we’re a strong team, we have a lot of good people on board, we have strong resources so I’m confident we should progress as the season goes on.”