Sebastian Vettel admitted he misjudged the situation during qualifying for the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix as the Scuderia Ferrari found himself on the wrong side of the cut off time during the first phase of the session.
Vettel believed his early time set on the Soft Pirelli tyres was enough to secure his passage through to Q2, but late quick laps from Jenson Button and Romain Grosjean meant the German driver was eliminated, and will start from sixteenth on the grid on Sunday.
“[There was] nothing wrong with the car, we thought that the lap I had on the Soft (harder) tyres was quick enough, but in the end it was not,” revealed Vettel. “There was also a car in front which shouldn’t have been there.
“So we misjudged the situation, a small mistake with big consequence, but the race is tomorrow and lots can happen.
“It is good that Kimi [Raikkonen] is in the front, we have a quick car and it is possible to overtake here, even if only tomorrow we’ll be able to tell how much it is. You can spend a lot of time speaking about what we did wrong, but in the end we know, so now we need to move forward.”
