Sebastian Vettel comments after the 2017 Russian Grand Prix

Sebastian Vettel had a good opportunity to score another win in the 2017 Formula One championship after the pole position on Saturday, but Scuderia Ferrari’s German driver lost the lead in the Russian Grand Prix at the start, by the braking point of turn two when Valtteri Bottas managed to get ahead and close the door on the Scuderia Ferrari car. Seb could not get past the Mercedes driver despite the good pace in the final stages of the race and eventually finished second in Sochi.

One of the few problems that Ferrari still have compared to Mercedes AMG Petronas Formula One Team is that the Maranelll side is less suited to cope with the long straights. And the Sochi track has a fifteen second straight from start to braking, which gave Valtteri Bottas an important slipstream advantage that could have only assisted in his overtaking efforts: “I think my getaway was OK. Maybe I could have been a bit more aggressive. There was a delay in turning the lights off, so that I didn’t get a proper reading of how the grid was. Still, I had a good start but we had a strong head wind all day and Bottas could get a massive tow, so there was nothing I could do.” – Sebastian Vettel explained, as reported by the online version of Tuttosport.

At the end of the day, Sebastian admitted that Bottas should be considered the superior driver during this weekend and fully deserving of the win in Sochi: “Valtteri had a great race. He drove better than the rest of us so he deserved to win. Towards the end I was flat out, I had a feeling that I could get into DRS distance, maybe on the back straight, put some pressure on him and, who knows, lead him into a mistake, but he made none. What happened with Massa was just a bit of a misunderstanding, I wasn’t sure where he was going, but I did not lose the race at that point.” – the Scuderia Ferrari driver continued.

Vettel is looking forward to the next race, which is scheduled to take place in Spain, and will arrive thirteen points ahead of nearest and most important rival in the fight for the F1 title, Lewis Hamilton. Ferrari will be looking to replicate their success from this Sunday with another strong race weekend: “Now we look ahead to Spain. We are here to win, to do our best, but we can still learn and improve. The speed was there today and we could have done better. However, we have a strong car and a strong team and there is a lot of positive aspects.”