Sebastian Vettel has promised to maintain the aggressive approach he took at the Japanese Grand Prix as he looks to hold off Lewis Hamilton’s championship celebrations in Austin.
The German was criticised after what some thought was an ambitious move on Max Verstappen during the race at Suzuka which saw him spin into the run-off area and recover to finish sixth.
Since 2012, only the Ferrari driver has beaten Hamilton at the Circuit of the Americas and needing a victory or at least a second to keep the title fight going to Mexico, Vettel knows there’s no point in playing it safe.
“It’s very simple – we are quite some points behind. We focus on winning, then we see what the others are doing, so it’s quite straightforward, to be honest,” he explained on Thursday.
“I always try to win. I think you have to be aggressive to win, and of course you need to find the right balance. You never try to do something silly or not to finish, because that way you can’t win.
“I know what it takes, I know what to do, so in that regard it’s fairly similar but for sure we know that we need to take a bit more risk because we are not in a position to manage the gap in the championship because we don’t have a gap.”
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Should Hamilton secure the eight more points he needs to score than Vettel to become champion, however, the 31-year-old concedes he has done everything right to deserve right.
“So far yes. It’s pretty obvious, you just have to look at the points,” he claimed.
“Unfortunately some of the races didn’t go our way at all, and they were able to benefit from that, but they were very strong benefitting from that.
“It’s not just we step aside and they were there; I think they had to do their job and they did it to get the points.
“Obviously it hurt us, but well played to them. From our side obviously it wasn’t ideal, but that’s done now, that’s in the past. We can’t change it.”
