• Hungarian Grand Prix

Red Bull was capable of more - Vettel

ESPN Staff
July 29, 2012 « Hamilton should stay at McLaren - Button | Button bamboozled by strategy »
Sebastian Vettel felt he should have finished higher than fourth in Hungary © Press Association
Enlarge
Related Links

Sebastian Vettel believes he had the pace to finish higher than fourth place at the Hungarian Grand Prix.

Vettel fell from third on the grid to fourth place behind Jenson Button on the first lap and lost time to leaders Lewis Hamilton and Romain Grosjean as a result. He managed to get ahead of Button at the first pit stops but then dropped to fourth again as Kimi Raikkonen leapfrogged him at the second stops.

"It's probably not the result we could have had today, our speed was a little bit better than that," Vettel said. "Obviously Jenson was quite slow and there we lost quite a lot and we couldn't just pit and come out in clean air because there was traffic. There's not much we could do."

Vettel made a third pit stop towards the end of the race but said it was not born out of necessity because of the state of his tyres, but rather because his team felt it would give him his best shot at passing the cars in front should their tyres drop off at the end.

"We thought we'd try something in case their tyres fell off the cliff, but it wasn't the case. We'll try again next time."

Vettel, who is now 42 points off Fernando Alonso in the title chase, said he would work on his starts to ensure he remains a contender in the championship.

"I finished ahead of [championship leader] Fernando Alonso but not by much," he said. "The race pace seems to be quite good and it's up to us to have better starts in the future because if you lose one or two places on qualifying it's a different race."

© ESPN Sports Media Ltd.
ESPN Staff Close