Sebastian Vettel ended Saturday’s qualifying session in second place on the track, but will receive a five place grid penalty for changing his gearbox, and will start the race from seventh position. The German is confident he will be able to quickly catch the cars ahead of him, and have a strong race tomorrow at the Sochi Autodrom.
“Yesterday we lost some time, but today I think we recovered,” said Vettel. “Now I’m waiting for the race. I will start seventh which is not where we belong, so we should be quicker than the other cars around and go from there. The car is good, so I am confident for tomorrow. We are not the favorites, but there’s always a chance. I hope not to get it wrong this time.
“For sure we need to start improving as soon as possible, that’s why we are pushing very hard. We are doing everything we can, we have a new engine here, and I think we are on the right way, but we still see that other people, especially Mercedes, are doing a good job as well.
“If you want to be the best you need to be ready to tackle the best. I have high confidence, but let’s keep our feet on the ground. It is easy to get over excited and for sure now we would like to be first, but that’s the nature of the game. We are wisely spending our energy looking at ourselves, trying to make improvements. Time will teach us…”
The Scuderia Ferrari squad will be hoping they can take advantage of Lewis Hamilton starting even further down the grid than Vettel in tomorrow’s race, with the aim of keeping the Mercedes AMG PETRONAS driver behind them for the duration.
