Sebastian Vettel was the biggest surprise of qualifying yesterday when a wrong call lead to him starting from 15th on the grid.
A podium was still possible for the German, and starting on the prime tyre meant he was on a different strategy to most of the cars around him.
He made a good start, getting to 12th by the end of the first lap, and after the first round of pit stops shuffled the field around, he found himself in the top five.
Getting a podium was just out of reach, with his teammate a full pit stop ahead going into the final stint and Vettel was happy to settle for fourth.
“Obviously I would have loved to get the podium again, but I think today’s result was the best possible one for us as a team.” The German said.
“The pace was good, especially in the first and final stint, the car was also good and I managed to do some overtaking. I was very happy, it was good fun.”
Vettel found himself having to let Raikkonen through on a couple of occasions, but was expecting this before the race: “We knew from before that Kimi and I would have crossed path with each other, as we were on very different tire strategies.”
“It was clear that when Kimi would be close enough I would give him way to haunt the Mercedes, unfortunately, that was not enough to achieve that, but I did not want to be in his way.”
Having finished in third on 278 points, Sebastian is looking ahead to next year and hopes the Ferrari team will be able to close the gap to Mercedes.
“Of course the last step to catch the Mercedes will also be the hardest one, but if you think about where we were only one year ago, this has been a miracle season.” The four-time World Champion said.
“Of course the last step to catch the Mercedes will also be the hardest one, but if you think about where we were only one year ago, this has been a miracle season.”
“I can’t think of any other team which improved so much over a year. I’m very happy to have joined the team in this moment and to have had an opening year with Ferrari like I had.”
