• Monaco Grand Prix - Qualifying

Vettel rues set-up changes

Sebastian Vettel will start ninth in Sunday's race © Sutton Images

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• Race:
• Monaco Grand Prix

• Drivers:
• Sebastian Vettel

• Teams:
• Red Bull

Sebastian Vettel admitted he and Red Bull took a wrong turn with the set-up of his car going into qualifying.

Vettel will start ninth once the grid penalties are applied after he opted not to set a lap in Q3 in order to save a set of fresh super-soft tyres. He said the decision not to run was an easy one.

"I think in the last run obviously that it was pretty clear that the cars in front were all on options and 1:15.2 was the time to beat and that was not realistic to beat on the prime tyre so we decided to come in and we at least saved that one lap on the tyres."

Vettel had been happier with the car in final practice but made changes to his setup going ahead of qualifying.

"This morning I was very happy to be honest and this morning we were quite competitive and going quicker than this afternoon with less effort. But we decided to change the car a little bit and it turned out to make a big difference. I think we ended up worse than we thought we would."

Vettel will be the highest placed drive on the grid starting on soft tyres and is hoping he'll be more comfortable with the car over a long run.

"It's completely different when we put fuel in the car but we'll get an answer tomorrow obviously. We are starting on the hard tyres, although we could still decide, but that was the idea why we went out on the harder tyres. I think the race is open tomorrow, anything can happen. We would love to qualify in the front but after Q1 and then in particular Q2 we saw that perhaps pole position was not really in reach for myself. That's why we decided to go the other way and we will see what we can do tomorrow."

He hinted that a one-stop strategy might be possible, similar to the one he attempted last year when he won the race.

"Last year we made a one-stop work but it was borderline," he said. "I'm not sure we can do that again. Some people will try tomorrow, other people will not. But it's really difficult, in particular because we haven't had the Thursday practice, which is usually when you get your first idea of how the tyre behaved."

Asked if he could make decent progress from his grid position, he said: "It's Monaco ... I don't know, some people say it might rain tomorrow and obviously that would make a big difference, but nevertheless we have the possibility to start on the hard tyres and have a different kind of race. It's all about track position and we start from P9. Obviously there are quite a few cars ahead, but it could be different after the first stops so we will see what we can do. It's Monaco so it's difficult to overtake, that could help you or it could hurt you depending on what you are trying to achieve."

© ESPN Sports Media Ltd.