Sebastian Vettel praised the “very high” quality battle between himself and Lewis Hamilton during the Belgian Grand Prix, which saw the Ferrari driver have to settle for second after a faultless drive from both men.
The German stalked the Mercedes through Sunday’s race at Spa-Francorchamps with the gap never expanding beyond a few seconds, but ultimately the triple world champion had too much speed in the key areas to hold his championship rival at bay.
Speaking afterwards, Vettel conceded he was having to wait for an opportunity to attempt a pass on Hamilton but the chase was still an exciting one, even if unsuccessful.
“I think overall it was a very good race, very fun. Obviously not that exciting probably to watch because we were very close but nothing happened,” he said.
“But good fun in the car because I was waiting for him to maybe have an error, he was waiting for me to maybe have an error, an off. It didn’t happen. The quality was very high I thought. Very consistent lap times despite the tyres.
“[I] never really had a chance, so maybe half a chance, quarter of a chance. I think the positive thing is that we had very good race pace,” he added.
“It was very difficult to follow in the middle sector, but we stayed close, then we benefitted a little bit in the first and the last sector, but overall the car was very good.”
A Safety Car entering the final third of the race appeared to offer a chance for Vettel as he changed to Ultrasoft tyres compared to the Briton on Soft, however, as the pace difference on the respective compounds proved minimal, the 30-year-old was left with his only chance when the race began again to make any attack on Hamilton.
“Obviously I knew that we had a tyre advantage with the Ultrasofts versus the Softs for the first couple of laps and particularly the restart,” he said. “You could see exiting Turn 1 I was all over Lewis. It was not so hard to follow so close, maybe that was the problem, my restart in the initial part was too good, it was too close!
“For sure if I had to do it again, maybe I would try something different. We know that they have a very good straight line speed and in qualifying [engine] mode at the start of the race, I obviously felt how strong they were up the hill on the start. So I didn’t want to be too far either.
“Finding that optimum is difficult. Lewis also lifted a bit going down to Eau Rouge, which I think he could afford because he knows he’s got a very good top-end [speed].”