Sebastian Vettel explains “different” Lewis Hamilton battle. Hamilton currently leads the Drivers’ Championship by four points.

Scuderia Ferrari German driver Sebastian Vettel has claimed his battle with main title rival Lewis Hamilton this year is ‘different’ to last Formula One season. In 2017 both drivers were neck-and-neck going into the second half of the season and it was expected to be a tight finish for the world championship.

However, Sebastian suffered a number of malfunctions to his car late in the year allowing Hamilton to win his fourth title with two races to spare. This time out, the Maranello team are looking much quicker than their Mercedes rival and the German driver is confident he will be able to put in a proper challenge for silverware. Hamilton currently leads the Drivers’ Championship by four points following his lucky win at the Azerbaijan Grand Prix.

But Sebastian Vettel believes his car has improved ten-fold: “The most important thing is that we have a good car. We have a car that we can work with qualifying. If we can put it in the front we can fight for a win. We have good pace in the race. I’m not worried at all because I think it’s quite different to last year where in qualifying for most of the time for most of the year we weren’t competitive enough.” – he said, as reported by the British media.

“And also then later in the season in the race we weren’t competitive enough to make things happen. But if you are quick enough you can make things happen. Now the way the race turned out is for some people good, for some people bad – speak to Valtteri [Bottas] I’m pretty sure he’s not sure because it was his win – but that’s how it goes. As I said I’m not worried because the car is there and we need to make sure it stays there.” – Scuderia Ferrari German driver Sebastian Vettel concluded.

Meanwhile, Lewis Hamilton agrees with Sebastian Vettel and adds that he will need a lot of luck if he is to hold on to his advantage: “Leading the championship is great, but if we continue as we are, it will take a lot of lucky races to keep me here,” Hamilton said – “And you can’t expect that for the next 17 races. The car has the pace but we are not unlocking it. We need performance and I need a rhythm and they’re not in perfect harmony.”