Sebastian Vettel was happy to have taken big risks after a stunning recovery drive at the Chinese Grand Prix.
After a start line mishap where he was not properly in his grid slot, he lost places in the early stages after being the first to pit under the virtual safety car.
Once the race got back under way, Vettel made some exemplary overtaking moves on his own team-mate Kimi Raikkonen and then his former Red Bull team-mate Daniel Ricciardo, even banging wheels with the Australian.
On the podium, Vettel commented: “I was happy to take the risk, with the virtual safety car you save a bit of time doing the pit stop, then the Safety Car came just when I was starting to feel the dry tyres were a lot quicker.
“I couldn’t use the advantage and obviously I lost a lot of positions, then I had an exciting race, stuck a little bit in the train for a while, then I finally made a move.
“I tried to obviously chase Lewis down as much as possible, every time I had the feeling, every time I put a lap in he was able to respond.”We were a good match, could have been a different race, but it was a good recovery.”
With the new generation of cars, drivers are excited to get stuck in with making moves on their rivals and get their elbows out which is making for much more exciting racing.
Vettel discussed his move on Ricciardo adding to his podium interview: “My target was to catch Lewis and I was stuck behind the train, I was getting a bit angry, annoyed, and I wanted to get by.
“I had the feeling that I can go a lot faster in these conditions, when I was behind Daniel I saw him blocking down the inside as I had a good run out of Turn 4.”I said ‘okay I have to try and around the outside [of Turn 6]’, I braked really late and hard, fortunately he didn’t lock up.
“Then on the exit I was a bit compromised, on the dirt, I got my elbows out, he really squeezed me but it was good fun and I had the inside for the next corner.”
