Sebastian Vettel defends Ferrari’s strategy and complains about latecomers

Sebastian Vettel had started the weekend with the prospect of a three-place penalty following his collision at the first corner in Malaysia. This pushed him back to 6th position, thanks to Kimi Räikkönen’s penalty for a gearbox change.

The German driver was then able to make a very good start, finding himself third at the end of the first lap, thanks to numerous overtakes: « We had a very good start and were able to make good progress in the first two laps by overtaking Ricciardo and Perez. We were faster than Verstappen. I think today we had the second-best car. So it was just a matter of time. Obviously, Max pitted as soon as he could to maintain his track position, which worked well for him. »

Ferrari then decided to opt for a different strategy by extending its second stint. Nevertheless, this strategy did not prove to be successful but the four-time world champion defends it: “We tried to use the softest tires towards the end. We initially thought it was going to work well but we had way too much degradation and we lost time. It’s always easy to criticize and I’m sure many ‘experts’ know more than us, but on the pit wall and I in the car, I was willing to go for this strategy of extending the second stint.”

For the driver accustomed to complaints on his radio, the reason for the failure of this strategy lies with the backmarkers, who did not get out of the way quickly enough for his liking: « The fact is that I lost a lot of time with the blue flags. I always caught up to the lapped cars in the first sector where they couldn’t move. So I lost a lot of time and that’s probably where I lost my position to Lewis, who always seemed to catch them on the straight. »

For his part, Kimi Räikkönen could only regret being stuck at the beginning of the race behind other cars, which prevented him from doing better than 5th in the end: « Once we got past them, I was all alone. The car was fast and handled well. We were definitely fast enough today for a better result. But unfortunately, that’s how it is… »

The Scuderia is now 50 points behind Red Bull with only four races remaining.