• Monaco Grand Prix

Order emerging but champion will need luck - Vettel

Sebastian Vettel: © Sutton Images

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• Race:
• Monaco Grand Prix

• Drivers:
• Sebastian Vettel

• Teams:
• Red Bull

Sebastian Vettel thinks the current standings in the drivers' and constructors' championships offer a fair representation of where the respective competitors are, but admits luck will play some part in the title chase this year.

Vettel is currently joint leader in the drivers' championship with Fernando Alonso, while his Red Bull team leads the way from McLaren in the constructors'. Tyres have had a significant impact on the opening five races and offered up five different winners from five different constructors.

Vettel believes the drivers that have scored well have deserved their results so far, but said luck would also go a long way over the course of the season.

"If you look at the average of the first five races then I think you have the drivers and the teams at the front that deserve to be at the front," he said. "It doesn't necessarily mean it is one team at the front always winning - we've had five different teams with five different drivers.

"But I think on average through the season with 20 races ... it's alright to say that the winner will be lucky. So the one who scores the most of the points will be crowned champion at the end of the year."

After winning in Bahrain and then struggling for front-running pace three weeks later in Spain and finishing sixth, Vettel admitted there was still an awful lot to learn about the tyres.

"I think in Bahrain we had, for the first time this season, a clean weekend with no problems. I was pretty happy with the balance of the car and obviously we had a very good result. Coming to Barcelona, we were hoping for a similar result or similar strength, but it looked like we were not that competitive and we've spent the last two weeks to try to understand why that was. We have some understanding, but I think there has been a lot of talk lately anyway at recent races, so we will see what we can do for here."

Despite losing time with a front wing change and a drive-through penalty, Vettel said he would have struggled to fight with the four cars at the front of the pack in Spain.

"It's difficult to draw a full conclusion because when you start further back you are likely to be in traffic for the first part of the race. Towards the end it was a little bit better but that's mostly because we were in clean air. Nevertheless, our maximum [result] was anyway around P5, so it's not as if we could argue with the first four places at that race."

But like tyre supplier Pirelli, Vettel thinks the teams will start to get a better understanding of this year's rubber as the season progresses.

"It's still in some ways the beginning of the season and it's still hard for us to understand what the tyres are doing and why the pace changes so much. I think the tyres are extremely difficult to understand, let's say, so usually it's never a problem, but now not only us but some others are having problems and struggling a little bit ... at the moment."

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