Sebastian Vettel is sure his Aston Martin debut “will be OK” despite a disrupted pre-season test two weeks ago.
The four-time world champion, who joins the rebranded Racing Point squad from Ferrari in 2021, completed the least laps of any race driver across the three days with 117 as reliability issues intervened.
Afterwards, Vettel claimed that number was 100 less than he was hoping for to get fully settled at Aston Martin, but he doesn’t think it will be a massive disadvantage heading to the Bahrain Grand Prix.
“I’m quite happy. I felt quite comfortable straight away, despite the little running, I think I got along with the car,” he said via Formula1.com on Thursday.
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“There are some things I still need to work on and I need to get used to, but I think time will take care of these things and even with more laps in the test there would still be some things that would need getting used to.
“I’m pretty relaxed, I think it will be OK.”
Vettel’s figure of 117 laps was 80 fewer than new teammate Lance Stroll managed in the AMR21, but Seb played down a question as to whether he expects to be behind the Canadian initially.
“No, I don’t race Lance, you know? I race everyone on the grid and I feel that we do as a team,” he replied.
“We didn’t do enough running and I think also on Lance’s side it wasn’t smooth. We will see when we get out tomorrow.
“It will take a bit of time just to get used to everything, still, for myself, but that doesn’t mean we can’t do well.”
On a lighter note, Vettel also confirmed his trend of naming cars will continue to Aston Martin. Revealing his AMR21 will be called Honey Ryder after the widely regarded first ‘Bond girl’ from the James Bond film Dr. No.
“It’s the first of its kind, a new story, so we thought it’s a good one,” he added.