Sebastian Vettel admitted he was frustrated by the gap to the Mercedes drivers after he had to settle for third place on the Bahrain grid.
Vettel, who had been fastest on Friday, was right with Lewis Hamilton and Valtteri Bottas in Q2 – but when it really mattered in Q3, the gap grew to four tenths.
“I think overall I was very happy with how qualifying went,” he said. “With how the car felt, because we had some issues yesterday. Nothing wrong but we just tweaked the balance for today I think in the right direction, so I was happy how it turned out to be. Felt good; Q2 I thought ‘OK, this will be tight.’ I was very happy to go into Q3. Then I was very happy with my first lap.
“I crossed the line, looked up and saw both of them were ahead and then when I got the time, yeah, I was a bit down to be honest, because four tenths was a lot more than I expected, also given how good the lap felt.
“Then, on the next run I just tried a little bit too hard everywhere, but equally I had nothing to lose. I was quite safe also to cars behind. So I was quite confident, also the lap felt good as I said, so I tried a bit harder. It didn’t work; I went slightly slower. Obviously if I go a tenth quicker it’s not enough, so I tried to do a bit more but hopefully we can do a bit more tomorrow.”
Vettel had no explanation as to why the gap was bigger in Bahrain than in previous races.
“No, not really. I haven’t seen obviously where we lost most of the time but I think a little bit spread everywhere. I think Sector One, Sector Three stood out so Sector Two wasn’t too bad. There’s more straights in Sector One and Three, so I don’t know if they had an update for here that allowed them to push harder.
“But it seems that we lost a little bit of time everywhere and maybe a little bit more than usual down the straights. Yeah. I think for tomorrow the most important thing is that the car felt good today and I think we should be closer. Hopefully it’s going to be a tight race and then we’ll see.”
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