Vettel names Aston Martin F1 car after Bond girl

The four-time world champion has a tradition of giving each of his F1's cars a girl's names, with previous monikers having included Margherita, Luscious Liz, Randy Mandy, Kate and Kate's Dirty Sister.

With his new Aston Martin team having a close association with James Bond, through the British sportscar manufacturer's tie-ups with the movie franchise, Vettel has elected to keep to the theme.

Speaking to Sky F1 about his choice Vettel said: "Honey Ryder…. The first of its kind. New story, so we thought it was a good one."

Honey Ryder was the Bond girl played by Swiss actress Ursula Andress in the 1962 film Dr. No.

Her entrance into the movie, emerging out of the ocean wearing just a white bikini and holding two large seashells, is considered one of the most famous moments from all of the James Bond films.

Vettel said that Dr. No remains his favourite Bond film, with Sean Connery his favourite Bond.

"Favourite movie? Favourite Bond? I think Sean Connery and to be fair Piers Brosnan. That's my youth! But yeah, Sean Connery, I think just very good style. And which movie? I quite like the first one. It kicked it off, obviously because of Honey Ryder."

Vettel is heading into this first race weekend with Aston Martin in Bahrain off the back of a difficult pre-season testing run, which was especially hampered by reliability troubles.

But despite arriving at the season opener on the backfoot, Vettel says he is far from worried about the situation and he thinks the team can make a lot of progress in practice.

"I don't think that anyone is really fully prepared for what's coming," he said. "We have a lot of races and we didn't have a great deal of testing, but yeah that's what it is.

"I'm confident that we should be in a reasonable position. So hopefully we can use the track time that we have, and get on top of it straight away to get ready for qualifying and then the race."