• Hungarian Grand Prix - Qualifying

I should have pushed harder - Vettel

Sebastian Vettel believes he lost pole position in the middle sector © Sutton Images

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Sebastian Vettel says his Red Bull had the ability to beat Lewis Hamilton to pole position and that he "should have pushed harder" during qualifying for the Hungarian Grand Prix.

Although beaten by the Mercedes in both Q1 and Q2, Vettel had looked extremely quick and managed to save an extra set of soft tyres for Q3. On his first run he was 0.8s clear of the rest of the field - with his rivals on used tyres - but when Hamilton put on a new set of softs he managed to take provisional pole and Vettel couldn't improve enough to beat him.

Vettel said the car had the pace to at least match Hamilton's time but that he hadn't found the extra speed on his final lap.

"I think I lost a little bit of time [in the middle sector] and should have been more aggressive," Vettel said. "That doesn't mean I didn't push but maybe I should have pushed a little bit harder, a little bit extra to get some more time. I think that the time Lewis did was in the car but it's always easier in hindsight to say you could have done a little bit more here or there but as a fact we did not so we deserved P2 today.

"There wasn't much missing. I think Lewis did a good job and put a strong lap in ... Surely I would love to be a little bit faster and be on pole but still it puts us in a great place for tomorrow. I think we have a good car and good pace for the race."

Vettel also admitted Lotus might deliver the stronger challenge to him in the race but said he'd need to at least hold position early on before worrying about the strategic edge Romain Grosjean may have from third place.

"We know that the Lotus is usually very good with the tyre; exceptional to everybody else. I think we are in a good position too, so we will see. Lewis is leading the pack and then we go from there. The race is long, the first corner is only a small part of it so we'll see what happens at the start and after that it could be all different already."

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