Sebastian Vettel is looking to put what happened during the French Grand Prix weekend firmly behind him after the German was penalised for a first corner clash with Valtteri Bottas, but aside from that drama, he felt the pace of the SF71H was strong at the Circuit Paul Ricard.
Vettel was running seventeenth on the restart following the early safety car after hitting Bottas at turn one and breaking his front wing in the incident that required a pit stop for it to be changed, but despite being handed a five-second time penalty by the stewards in France for the clash, he was still able to come back fighting through to finish the race in fifth.
“If we consider the whole weekend, France was a much better one than Barcelona, and there are similarities between the two circuits in terms of asphalt and because we had the same tyres,” said Vettel.
“Our pace was good, but there’s no point now in looking back too much, it was what it was.”
Looking ahead now to this weekend’s Austrian Grand Prix, the Scuderia Ferrari driver feels there is potential to have another strong race at the Red Bull Ring, with Vettel eyeing up his fourth win of the year to close up the fourteen-point deficit he has to current championship leader Lewis Hamilton.
“As for Austria, I always enjoy coming down here, both in winter for skiing and now for the Grand Prix,” said the German. “Our car is strong and this track should suit us in principle, although now it’s impossible to predict how competitive we will be, with the weather and all the variables of a racing weekend.”
