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Vettel: Gap to Hamilton "not a true reflection"

19:30, 15 Sep 2018

byJake Williams-Smith

Sebastian Vettel believes that the gap between himself and Lewis Hamilton in qualifying is not truly representative of either drivers' performance. Vettel finished a massive 0.6s off of Hamilton's pole time around a track Vettel has seemingly mastered in the past.

Speaking in the post-qualifying press conference, Vettel explained that the huge gap wasn't a true representation of the difference in pace between Mercedes and Ferrari and said he expects the race to go differently tomorrow.

“Obviously, the gap if you look at it is a surprise but I don’t think it reflects the true performance,” Vettel said.

“Obviously for us it did not go as smooth as it should have been.”

“I think we should have done better. We had the ingredients and we should have put it together. You know, P3 is not a disaster so I am not completely upset but for sure we wanted to get pole.

“It was definitely there to grasp but the way qualifying happened, obviously, it wasn’t anymore. That is disappointing for now but tomorrow we turn the page and go racing.”

“It is very close, across all sessions that everybody has been up top,” he added. We can’t expect miracles tomorrow because nobody has the pace to lap the others but overall it is good to have pace and we will see what we can do.”

Vettel had apparently argued with the team about finishing Q2 on the ultrasofts rather than switching to the hypersofts as he eventually did. The team denied his request and pitted him for the hypersoft tyres to get through, not wanting to risk being knocked out should Vettel not manage to improve his time.