Sebastian Vettel was left to reflect on what might have been after being forced to settle for fifth on the grid for the Hungarian Grand Prix during the disrupted qualifying session at the Hungaroring on Saturday.
The Scuderia Ferrari driver believed he could have qualified higher had circumstances been more favourable to the German, but Vettel still has one eye on the podium on race day, especially if the team can work out a clever strategy.
“I am not happy with P5, because it could have been better,” said Vettel. “It was quite a mess at the beginning to get through, then at the end I think we had a good performance in the car.
“We improved for this afternoon, but unfortunately the result doesn’t show it. The pace was there, but we were not able to get the lap. It’s a shame because in the end it was very good, I think it was already half a second down, then there was a yellow flag which caught us out, but we kept going. Then there was a bit of traffic, sometimes it is just like that.
“I think we have the pace to compete for the podium tomorrow, hopefully we’ll have a good start then we’ll go from there. It’s a long race, anything can happen here. Other than that, I think that in the race pace usually we are quicker.
“Usually all the people decide to do the fastest strategy possible, but there’s always something you can do. If the occasion comes up to do something smart I know we have the people on board to do it, so I trust them.”
