Sebastian Vettel was downbeat after qualifying sixth for his home Grand Prix at Hockenheim on Saturday, and admitted he was just not fast enough.
The Scuderia Ferrari driver felt he struggled to extract pace from his SF16-H in a difficult qualifying session at the Hockenheimring, and was baffled to why the balance of his car was not as a strong as it had been earlier in the weekend.
“I am not happy with 6th position, it was a difficult session,” said Vettel. “In the moment I tried to do the best, we didn’t get everything together. Somehow we lost a bit and now we need to understand what happened this afternoon.
“I was reasonably happy with my lap, but it wasn’t quick enough, there was a bit of time we lost here and there, overall we struggled a bit to extract the pace from the car.
“The balance didn’t come together in qualifying, it was better this morning and yesterday. We know the car can be quicker, but we didn’t manage to get it in the right window, that’s our job and we didn’t succeed.”
Vettel is looking to bounce back during Sunday’s race in Germany, and believes he can move forward from his starting position.
“I’m sure that tomorrow we’ll be competitive, but again we start a little bit from the back foot, so it will be tough because here it’s not easy to overtake,” said Vettel.
“I think we don’t have to hide, in terms of race pace we are fast, then it should be an interesting race.”
