Breaking news
Formula 1 Singapore GP
Vettel frustrated by "messy" Singapore qualifying
Ferrari's Sebastian Vettel described his performance as "not good enough" after slumping to third in qualifying for the 2018 Formula 1 Singapore Grand Prix.
Scott Mitchell
Edited: Sep 15, 2018, 4:22 PM
Copy link
Share on Viber
Vettel headed Saturday's free practice by a comfortable half-second margin, but lost out to both Mercedes' Lewis Hamilton and the Red Bull of Max Verstappen in the final battle for pole position.
After climbing from the cockpit Vettel lamented what he described as a "messy" session.
"For sure I'm not happy with how the day went," said Vettel. "Qualifying for us wasn't as smooth as it should have been, other people obviously have done better than us, and that's why we're third.
"I am not worried about the gap [to Hamilton], I don't think it shows how strong we are. It's just disappointing that we didn't get the maximum out of our package."
None of the frontrunners improved their times in the final moments of Q3 after Hamilton hit the top of the timesheets with a spectacular 1m36.015s even he could not surpass.
Vettel made it through Q1 comfortably but had a more nervous time in Q2 after trying to use Pirelli's ultrasoft compound in that session. After a snap decision by the team to move on to hypersofts, Vettel had one flying lap to set a time good enough to progress to Q3 and struggled in traffic.
Once through to Q3 he was beaten by Hamilton in the first flying laps and then failed to improve on his own time in his second run.
"We were hoping for more than third," he said. "Lewis had a good lap, and congratulations to him, but I don't think it was unbeatable.
"The way we composed qualifying… it was difficult to get a rhythm, and I was struggling in Q1, Q2 and Q3. As I said before, other people did a better job - that's including Lewis's lap as an individual and them [Mercedes] as a team. It [third] is not what we wanted.
"I don't want to take anything away from Lewis's lap, but it's clear that we could have done better. I don't think there's much point in going into detail… maybe preparing the lap for qualifying, but in the end I had the laps and they were not strong enough or good enough to be near."
Ferrari's ultrasoft gambit in Q2 was a clear attempt to pave the way for a one-stop strategy.
Had Vettel and Raikkonen succeeded in setting their fastest Q2 lap on the ultrasofts they would have started the race on those tyres, enabling them potentially to run longer then others who had qualified on the fast but delicate hypersofts.
But when Raikkonen struggled and declared the ultrasofts "not fast enough", Ferrari decided to abandon the strategy mid-session – despite Vettel saying on the team radio that he could find another half a second on that compound.
After qualifying, Vettel declined to elaborate further on the strategy.
"It was clear what we tried to do and it didn't work," he said
We want your opinion!
What would you like to see on Motorsport.com?
Take our 5 minute survey.
- The Motorsport.com Team
Read and post comments
Read also :
Share Or Save This Story
Copy link
Share on Viber
Previous article Verstappen denied pole shot by engine cutting out
Next article Ferrari's loss of pace in qualifying "odd" - Raikkonen
Top Comments
There are no comments at the moment. Would you like to write one?
View More & Comment
More from
Scott Mitchell
Alfa Romeo must do better in "chaotic" races - Vasseur
Formula 1
Formula 1
Alfa Romeo must do better in "chaotic" races - Vasseur
Honda: Verstappen relationship 'like a young Senna'
Formula 1
Formula 1
Honda: Verstappen relationship 'like a young Senna'
Key team personnel shouldn't be F1 boss - Ferrari
Formula 1
Formula 1
Key team personnel shouldn't be F1 boss - Ferrari
Latest news
GTA VI 'Vice City' blimp to appear at NASCAR championship weekend
NASCAR Cup
NAS NASCAR Cup
Phoenix II
2 h
GTA VI 'Vice City' blimp to appear at NASCAR championship weekend
Verstappen Racing struggles to 15th as Porsche takes emotional Portimao pole
GT World Challenge Europe Endurance
WCEE GT World Challenge Europe Endurance 3 h
Verstappen Racing struggles to 15th as Porsche takes emotional Portimao pole
Franco Colapinto urges fans to stop the abuse: “You’re not helping me or my future”
Formula 1
F1 Formula 1
Singapore GP
7 h
Franco Colapinto urges fans to stop the abuse: “You’re not helping me or my future”
Gresini: New MotoGP rules won't increase gap between factory and satellite teams
MotoGP
MGP MotoGP
Indonesian GP
8 h
Gresini: New MotoGP rules won't increase gap between factory and satellite teams
Feature
Discover prime content
Subscribe and access Motorsport.com with your ad-blocker.
From Formula 1 to MotoGP we report straight from the paddock because we love our sport, just like you. In order to keep delivering our expert journalism, our website uses advertising. Still, we want to give you the opportunity to enjoy an ad-free and tracker-free website and to continue using your adblocker.
You have 2 options:
- Become a subscriber.
- Disable your adblocker.
Subscribe now Already subscribed? Sign in here
Already disabled your adblocker?
Reload page
Manage Alerts
Subscribe