Sebastian Vettel described Saturday at the Monaco Grand Prix as a “difficult day” for his Scuderia Ferrari team.
The German qualified fourth for Sunday’s race but his Ferrari team-mate Charles Leclerc was knocked out in the first part of qualifying with Vettel being the driver who knocked Leclerc into the drop zone.
This followed a tricky Free Practice 3 session earlier in the day which Vettel ended in the crash barrier at turn one.
“It was a difficult day for the whole team.
“I ended up in the barrier in the third free practice session, but the guys did a great job to fix the car and get me out for qualifying.”
The earlier crash seemed to compromise Vettel in Q1 and forced him to run again after his opening lap in the session left him in the drop zone but unfortunately, his passage through came at the expense of Leclerc.
“Unfortunately, we struggled to get the tyres to work properly in Q1 and that meant I had to use an extra set.
“I managed to get through, but Charles didn’t while he was in 15thplace, which would have been good enough.”
“Unfortunately, these things can happen in Monaco, if you don’t have a margin, you have to take risks and it doesn’t always go the way you want.
“We were not as competitive as we would have liked to be in qualifying, but the race is a different matter and in Monaco, anything can happen.”
