Sebastian Vettel has reaffirmed his trust in Ferrari claiming he will “always defend” his team, this despite another difficult result at the Singapore GP.
The German was the strong favourite for victory on the streets of Marina Bay based on his previous record and the expectation that Mercedes would struggle, as they have in previous years.
Instead, the brilliance of Lewis Hamilton in qualifying saw him claim pole position before controlling the race, with Vettel a distant third after a wrong strategy call.
Though initially appearing critical of Ferrari, stating that “the way we raced we didn’t have a chance” and that the team had underperformed, the 31-year-old insists that was not the case.
“I will always defend the team,” he told Autosport. “The decision we took in the race to try and be aggressive, if it works then it’s great. Today it didn’t work and it didn’t work by quite a bit so we need to look into that.
“Overall if you see the gap at the end it was clear that we were not fast enough in the race. We need to understand why.
“It’s largely down to how we decided to race and which tyres and for how many laps, etc. With what we did, we tried to get to first position and get ahead but Lewis was too quick.
“Once you are ahead you can control the pace around here, but we never got ahead.”
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After his third place in Singapore, falling behind Max Verstappen through the pit-stop phase, it means Vettel now sits 40 points behind Hamilton with six races to go.
“Lewis said he didn’t expect to come here gaining 10 points, we probably didn’t come here expecting to lose 10 points,” he admitted.
“But, having had the race that we had, I think there’s a full justification for losing those 10 points and we take it.
“Obviously, there is still a long way to go and a lot of points to score. I never believed that we had the fastest car by a big margin, as people said. I know that we have a very good car.
“I [also] think our car is working pretty much everywhere and that’s a strength, so no need to be afraid of what’s coming.”
