Sebastian Vettel was disappointed after failing to secure pole position at the Canadian Grand Prix, yet he keeps high hopes for the race on Sunday.
The Ferrari had been most people’s favourite heading into qualifying after leading in the final practice but, in a remarkable battle with Lewis Hamilton, had to settle for second following mistakes in his final run.
Losing pole did not end Vettel’s determination to win the race, however, saying he believes he has the pace to fight back on Sunday.
“I’m not so happy with the last run I had in qualifying,” he admitted, “I would have loved to repeat the second run and find a little bit.
“I tried to push a bit hard, but then pushed too hard. I knew I had to improve, even if just by five thousandths.
“I thought we could step it up and find a bit of time. I lost a bit into Turn 2 and then lost two-tenths out of the second corner and then I knew I had to catch up, which I did until the end of the lap which I did to get the same as before.”
“Nevertheless the car was very good, I was happy this morning and we should be good in the race.”
Ferrari and Mercedes used different methods to try and extract the optimum performance from the tyres, as Hamilton chose two warm-up laps and Vettel just one.
But the German believes his team made the right call managing the qualifying runs and does not believe that a different set up would have changed the outcome.
“I was confident to go with the first lap,” Vettel proceeded “You saw the lap times getting better. I was confident we made the right call.
“We always expected Mercedes to be very quick, especially in the last segment. Lewis did a better job today and got a good lap. He was the better man today.”