Sebastian Vettel was left to reflect on a poor result for himself and Scuderia Ferrari as he could only finish the Australian Grand Prix in fourth position, fifty-seven seconds behind race winner Valtteri Bottas and just ahead of team-mate Charles Leclerc.
Vettel came into the weekend as the favourite for both pole position and the race victory but fell a long way short in both, and even saw Red Bull Racing’s Max Verstappen catch and pass him for the final spot on the podium as he struggled to find some pace on the medium Pirelli tyre.
Ultimately, the trio of Bottas, Lewis Hamilton and Verstappen were all able to pull away from Vettel, and it was only team orders that prevented Leclerc from making it an even more miserable day for the four-time World Champion.
“We were not happy with the car the whole weekend but today we struggled a lot,” said Vettel. “The reason I was so slow in the race was mostly due to the fact that the car could not find enough grip with the medium tyres that we fitted at the pit stop.
“As a team, we still got a decent amount of points from our fourth and fifth places, but this is not the result we were aiming for just a few weeks ago. So in the coming days, we will analyse the data in detail so as to be ready for the next race, which is not far away now.”
Vettel hopes the team can find the reasons to why Ferrari were just not in the hunt for the victory ahead of the second race of the season in Bahrain at the end of the month so they can have a much better showing at the desert venue.
“I’m sure that looking at all the information we have gathered here will give us a better understanding, but today, the result we got was the best we could do,” finished the German.
