Sebastian Vettel acknowledges teammate Kimi Raikkonen was the faster of the two Ferrari’s for much of the Hungarian Grand Prix, despite claiming victory on Sunday in Budapest.
The German driver had the Finn on his tail for much of race at the Hungaroring as the four-time world champion struggled with out-of-line steering but the inability for the cars to follow closely made it impossible for Raikkonen to attempt a pass.
The four-time world champion, who extended his championship lead to 14 points as a result of his fourth win of 2017, also revealed the race felt a lot longer than 70 laps as his lack of pace allowed his teammate and Mercedes to apply pressure.
“I was hoping for a more quiet afternoon,” he admitted after the race. “I thought that we had a very good pace and Kimi had a very good pace so he could go a lot faster than me for the majority of the race.
“The race felt very, very long every lap I was looking down it didn’t end!” he added. “The last couple of laps I was able to find a bit of a rhythm and open a bit of a gap which helped me take the very last part of the race a bit easier through traffic and control the race to the end.
“The result was great, how we got there was very tense but very happy, it was a great result for the team.”
Asked when he first felt a problem with the steering alignment, Vettel replied: “I think I felt already there was something not right when we dropped the car on the grid.
“Driving the car to the grid was fine but for the formation lap when we dropped the car the steering wheel was already not straight. Then we did the start then there was a Safety Car then in the opening laps I felt that it wasn’t right but it didn’t impact too much because it was only small.
“I did try to adapt and I obviously knew I can’t change it and then I tried to save the car. I was talking through the problem and they told me to avoid the kerbs which I was doing already, but on a track where you use the kerbs nearly in every corner it’s obviously compromising your performance.”
The now 46-time Grand Prix winner also admitted he got a little lucky by having this kind of problem at the Hungaroring with its twisty layout making it easier for him to defend his position.
“In the end, I was really going flat out and obviously they were all behind me queuing,” Sebastian explained. “It’s good that you can’t overtake that easily around this track but I had no room for error so it was a tricky race with the lapped cars, not the easiest to go through.”
