Sebastian Vettel isn’t interested in applying blame after a troubled pre-season left him “100 laps” behind ahead of the first race.
Needing a smooth three-day test to settle in at Aston Martin, the four-time world champion had the exact opposite as reliability issues limited him to just 117 laps, the least of any race driver.
“At this stage, every lap is extremely important to understand the car, to understand how the car wants to be driven, to figure out the differences of my past and my future, so to say,” Vettel explained.
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“There’s still a lot that I can improve and there’s still a lot that we can improve. We have to learn obviously a great deal about the car still, when it comes to set-up and so on.
“But I think everybody’s in the same position because with three days of running it’s impossible to get everything in. I think for us the first couple of races will be, especially for me, a steep learning curve, but we’ll take it from there.”
Asked how far off his ideal amount of laps he was, Vettel replied: “Obviously I would have liked to just get more mileage, that’s the main thing.
“Today [Sunday] was very busy and I tried to make use of the track time, which I felt I did, and it was very good for me, I learned a lot of things.
“So now it’s obviously [important] to remember all these things and give feedback and remember going forward. This is the key.
“As I said, I’m just short on mileage. Overall it’s probably 100 laps that I’m short and probably something similar for Lance [Stroll], we both obviously didn’t get what we wanted, but it’s not a big deal, it’s what it is and we’ve got to move on.”
The reliability problems were caused by the gearbox on Saturday and then a turbo issue on Sunday, parts supplied to Aston Martin by Mercedes.
But perhaps keen to ensure his relationship with the German manufacturer begins well, Vettel didn’t want to point the finger for the team’s poor start.
“The components are in our car and mix with our own components,” he told Auto Motor und Sport.
“In the end, the fault is always a little more on one side or the other, but that is not important. It’s only important that it gets fixed.
“I’ve been here for so long now. The whole thing doesn’t bother you so much anymore,” he added.
“10 years ago, panic would probably be the order of the day, but that doesn’t help. We have to stay calm, give us time and do our work. After all, we have a few runs to analyse.
“It could be better, but it could have been worse.”
