Sebastian Vettel believes his progress at Aston Martin is being masked by Formula 1's "very tight" midfield battle.
The four-time world champion will start 13th at the Emilia Romagna Grand Prix on Sunday, an improvement on his Q1 exit in Bahrain but still three places behind teammate Lance Stroll.
Vettel though is certainly in the ballpark in terms of lap time, finishing less than three-tenths behind the Canadian, who just made it into Q3 in P10.
“It’s better,” Seb commented afterwards. “I think it was a reasonable session. I think there was a bit more I could have put together with the laps.
Also Read:
“I’m not entirely happy, but it’s obviously very tight and small differences in time can make quite a lot of positions in the midfield.
"Obviously the first teams have a bit of an advantage, but then I think it’s quite tight and every weekend is probably going to be a bit different.”
In terms of race prospects, Vettel is looking for a bit of help from the sky to make significant progress.
“It’s one of the most difficult tracks to overtake on but I think in terms of race pace we should be quite okay,” he said. “Let’s see to have a clean getaway and take it from there. Maybe we will have a bit of rain that could help us.”
As for Stroll, he had his lap times deleted for track limits in Q3, leaving him P10 on the grid and feeling vulnerable.
“Just a bit of a shame,” the Canadian admitted. “We were P9 and obviously P10 now. It’s fine margins for the track limits, so Turn 9 I got pinged and that was a bit annoying, but we’ll get it back tomorrow.
“The medium-tyre runners tomorrow will be strong, there’s no doubt. We have a different race ahead of us compared to them – [Carlos] Sainz in P11 is on the medium, I’m sure he’ll be strong.
“So we have to watch out for some other guys but we’ll see what happens tomorrow – the weather could be interesting.”
