Despite the disappointment of missing out on the championship this year, Scuderia Ferrari German driver Sebastian Vettel still believes he and the Maranello team can return to the dominance the team enjoyed in the Michael Schumacher era.
Sebastian Vettel scored a long overdue victory in Brazil, ending a run of seven races without a win, a spell which saw Scuderia Ferrari lose the drivers’ and constructors’ championships to Lewis Hamilton and Mercedes. The Italian team’s strong championship challenge fell apart during the Asian rounds, with Sebastian Vettel colliding with teammate Kimi Raikkonen and Red Bull’s Max Verstappen in Singapore, before successive engine failures in Malaysia and Japan allowed Hamilton to wrap up the championship in Mexico.
But the four-time Formula One world champion was focusing on the positives after Interlagos, such as the fact Ferrari is still winning races at the end of 2017: “I think it was very positive this year. Nobody expected Ferrari to be that strong. For us to be that strong, we’ve made the biggest step there was a lot of talk from other people. But in the end we were there from the start, and also until the end. We had two races to go [after losing the title] and we are in a position to fight for victories. We’ve won In Brazil, both cars on the podium. I think there are a lot of positives. Of course, if you miss out of tracks along the way but we have to be fair, we haven’t been very competitive last year, we haven’t been very good developing the car, and we’ve made massive progress this year.
“Even if you look at the chance that may be you’ve missed, you have to give credit to the people to all the team, for the step that we made. I think we can feel, all of us, we are getting stronger and stronger and we carry that strength into the next couple of years, not just next year not just the winter, but also the future. Because I think our objective is to bring back Ferrari properly, and get there and dominate. That’s what we want to do.”
After winning one of the final two races, Vettel is relishing the opportunity to finish 2017 on a high by attempting to repeat that victory in Abu Dhabi: “I think it’s a good job that we have races now,” he said. “It helps to not get distracted I guess. Obviously in the past we didn’t have to deal with this. So, I was quite fortunate. But I think it helps to just have something to do.”
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