Lewis Hamilton deserved to win in Shanghai, says Vettel
Sebastian Vettel insists that Lewis Hamilton was a deserving winner in China – despite an unlucky break with a safety car costing the Ferrari star a genuine shot at victory.
Vettel was the first top driver to switch from intermediates to slicks just two laps after the damp start, but a safety car dispatched after Antonio Giovinazzi crashed cost him any advantage he would have gained and left him having to fight past teammate Kimi Raikkonen and both Red Bull drivers. He eventually finished second.
“I’m maybe not clever enough but I try to not confuse myself,” said Vettel. “So I just go with the fact that who wins the race deserves to win. Every race we do I think the race winner deserves to win. So, Lewis did the best job. Obviously we were a bit unfortunate maybe with the Safety Car maybe early on – but even if it wasn’t there you never know how it could have impacted on the race. Was it enough? I thought yes – but then it’s a long race from there and it could have been a different outcome.”
Vettel acknowledged that he had a tougher job than Hamilton, as he had to fight past other cars,
“I had a bit more to do in the race than he had. I saw he was controlling the pace, probably, in the beginning. Once I got past Kimi and Daniel I obviously tried to hunt him down but knowing that it would be difficult with that gap. And in the last couple of laps I asked the team to give me an average of what we needed to catch up etcetera, just to know what I have to do.
“I kept pushing because you never know, maybe Lewis is doing a mistake, or has an issue with the car so I wanted to keep the pressure on – but yeah, I enjoyed the fact we were racing, even though not side-by-side or right behind each other but five, six, eight seconds apart. To hear that he was pushing as well I think is good news. So in terms of pace it was probably a match. Sometimes he was a bit faster, sometimes I was a bit faster. Overall it was good fun.”
Despite being frustrated while trying to pass Raikkonen, Vettel made no excuses.
“Would, could, should. I think Lewis was quick. Full stop. I think they did a good race, he did a good race, so to get into these kind of conversations, or discussions, usually there is no point. Today we finished second, very happy with that, we take it, good points. More than that, and much more valuable than that, it was an entertaining and fun race for me. I had some overtaking. It was difficult to get close to the car, like last race you felt the effect but here I think it’s a better track to overtake and yeah, it’s the way it should be in my opinion: you need to make it stick so it shouldn’t come for free. You shouldn’t just open the flap and sail past. It was good fun. I can’t complain.”
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