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Vettel: I tried to push harder but it didn't work

09:15, 28 Oct 2018

byBobby Vincent

Ferrari driver Sebastian Vettel felt that he tried too hard during the final run in qualifying for today's race.

Vettel was trying to set a quicker time than the two Red Bulls, who were flying in Mexico.

The German driver was third fastest after his first run out on Q3, but then he failed to improve upon his second run - meaning his title rival Lewis Hamilton could overtake him to claim P3.

Daniel Ricciardo claimed his third ever career pole on Saturday, with his team-mate Max Verstappen just behind him and Vettel believes that he tried too hard to try and bridge the gap; and ultimately fell 0.211 seconds shy.

"I was pretty happy with my first run in Q3, but I knew that in order to beat the Red Bulls, I would have needed probably a couple of tenths more," Vettel told The Checkered Flag.

"So I tried to push harder in my last attempt and it didn't work, the lap was not so far away from the previous one but not a very clean one, either, and I lost a bit of time in some places.

"This is a track in which aerodynamic efficiency is probably not so important, you try to throw in all the downforce you can, and I could see that we were fast in the first secotr, but losing out elsewhere."