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I'm not as boring as Schumacher - Vettel

Sebastian Vettel says his recent dominance is not the same as Michael Schumachers in the early 2000s © Getty Images

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Sebastian Vettel denies his dominance in the last four races is similar to Michael Schumacher's in the early 2000s.

Following the Korean Grand Prix, Lewis Hamilton said Vettel's dominance was turning fans off and sending them to sleep - comments he later clarified on Twitter. But Vettel denies his last four victories have been in the same vein as Schumacher's strongest seasons between 2000 and 2004.

"It's a compliment first of all! But I think it's very different," he said. "There was one race which was a bit of an exception, in Singapore the gaps we had and were able to build up was incredible - to lap at two seconds quicker than the cars behind, but obviously it depended on who was behind us and on which tyres and so on.

"But if you take Korea, which is more similar to Spa for example, the gap was something between three and six seconds for the whole race and if you look ten years ago it was more like 30 to 60 seconds, which is a big difference. Don't get me wrong, it's a nice cushion to have in the car when you are three seconds down the road, but equally you know that one stupid mistake - like a lock up in Korea for example, which was very likely - and three seconds is nothing."

Vettel said his four victories in the last four races were a result of sustained hard work from the team and not a single magic update.

"It's right to say we had a very strong car at the beginning of the season, strong enough to always finish in a very strong position on Sunday afternoon," he said. "Lately we have been fine, whereas at the beginning of the year Mercedes seemed to have the upper hand. I think there is no real explanation from our side, there is not one part that went on the car and all of a sudden it was much quicker.

"I think we were able to improve the car for arriving in Spa, the car was better than it was in Hungary and since then we have just tried to improve and there are new bits coming every race weekend, even though sometimes it is a very small package. But we are still pushing very hard and we are trying to improve the car and I'm sure the others do the same, but it seems that we have lots of parts lately that are coming and making the car quicker.

"Plus there is a factor of you understanding the car more than in the beginning of the season, so you are able to react quicker and change the set-up in the right manner. There is not much time because you look on Friday and you have one chance overnight to make the change and we got better as a team in that regard too."

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