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Vettel 'never ceases to surprise'

Christian Horner called Sebastian Vettel "a perfectionist" © Sutton Images

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• Race:
• European Grand Prix

• Championship:
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• Drivers:
• Sebastian Vettel

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• Red Bull

Red Bull team principal Christian Horner has said that Sebastian Vettel "never ceases to surprise" the team after his sixth win in eight races at the European Grand Prix.

Vettel has dropped just fourteen points this season after finishing second in China and Canada, with the latter coming as a result of a last lap error which allowed the closing Jenson Button through to take victory. Horner said that Vettel had targeted a "perfect weekend" in Valencia to dismiss the notions that he could crack under pressure, and that the team had been impressed once again by his ability to analyse how a race was unfolding.

"He was keen to have a perfect weekend in Valencia, and he did just that" Horner is quoted by Sporting Life. He bounced back. But then he never ceases to surprise us because at one point we hadn't told him we had put the prime (harder) tyres on Mark's car because we didn't want him to push any harder. But then he came on the radio at one point and said 'What time is Mark doing on the primes?'

"We all looked at ourselves and thought 'Who told him?' Of course, he was watching the big TV screen as he was going round, and he's the capacity to take that in. So he's always thinking, which is one of his major strengths."

Having completed the hat-trick of pole position, fastest lap and the race victory, Horner called Vettel "a perfectionist", and said that winning races was all that matters to him at this stage of the season.

"He just continues to improve. His confidence is sky high, he's won six out of eight races now, finished second in the other two, is 14 points off a maximum score at pretty much the halfway stage which is hugely impressive. At the end of the day he's a perfectionist. He analyses his own performance more than anybody, and that's so rewarding for the guys to be working with. It pushes everybody.

"He wants to win. He's very focused. If you look at what happened in Montreal it was all about winning. He went for it on the last lap, but it didn't work out. It shows, though, his mindset is all about the 25 points."

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