Sebastian Vettel on the 2017 Australian GP

Sebastian Vettel believes that the calm and silent approach which Scuderia Ferrari has chosen over the winter and the Formula 1 testing sessions should be considered the key to the Italian team’s resurgence in Formula One after taking the Scuderia’s first win in two years at the Australian Grand Prix.

Sebastian Vettel’s victory at the Albert Park circuit in Melbourne, his 43rd Formula 1 win, marked Ferrari’s first victory in F1 since the 2015 Singapore Grand Prix, also won by the German driver. Ferrari’s brilliant performance and perfect strategy in Melbourne confirmed the positive impressions after the pre-season testing sessions, in which the Maranello team seemed to be in a better position than recent years to challenge rivals Mercedes:

“I didn’t manage that, I’m not the team manager!” – Sebastian Vettel joked when asked to comment on what had changed behind the scenes – “I think in the end it was clear when we started off three years ago that there’s a lot to do, a lot to reshuffle and we knew the team was at a low but the spirit was very good in the first year, in 2015, and I think last year was also a very good year, not in terms of the results but in terms of the team and it’s good also to hit some lows and go through difficult periods even though they suck. You know as you look race by race it’s not great but still seeing what happened in the background I think it’s important. I think the people always kept believing. As I said the last six months have been very calm, we’ve done our work and it’s starting to pay off so I think obviously now it peaks and we’re on top of this grand prix but that’s a small achievement.” – the German driver said, as reported by Corriere dello Sport.

“If you look who we are up against I think Mercedes have been phenomenal in the last few years. Incredible effort, incredible with both drivers, and now Valtteri just fitted in and kept doing fantastic job for the team so [there’s] no weak link from the outside, at least not one we can see, so they’ll be the team to beat. But for sure today I’m just happy we take it as a team, and we saw the guys smiling and singing.” – Sebastian concluded after the 2017 Australian GP.