- Italian GP - Race
Aggressive strategy cost Vettel in battle with Ricciardo
Sebastian Vettel claims that battling the McLarens was part of the reason his tyres started to go off towards the end of the Italian Grand Prix when he lost fifth place to team-mate Daniel Ricciardo.
Vettel was running ahead of Ricciardo for most of the race, but the two were on completely different strategies. Vettel pitted relatively early on lap 18 in an attempt to get ahead of Kevin Magnussen in fourth and fend off Jenson Button in sixth, while Ricciardo, who had made a poor start, waited until lap 26.
The differing strategies crossed on lap 47 when Ricciardo, who was charging through the field on fresher tyres, sold Vettel a dummy to pass into the second chicane. By that point Vettel said he was struggling with his tyres and he had to settle for sixth.
"I think that was the most we could do today," he said. "On the primes [hard tyres] we weren't able to look after the tyres as well as we wanted to. In terms of strategy we wanted to get the McLarens so we went aggressive with the early stop, but the tyres started going off at the end and all in all that was what we could do today."
It has been a difficult year for the defending champion, but he can still see some positives from 2014.
"The target is to get back to the front, at the moment the gap is quite big but we will have to work hard to close it again. We have had some difficulties this year, but they can only make us stronger if we learn from them."
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