Sebastian Vettel on Ferrari’s performance in the first part of the 2017 season. Seb took his fourth victory of the season in Hungary.

Scuderia Ferrari German driver Sebastian Vettel does not wish to read too much into his advantage at the top of the Formula 1 drivers’ championship heading into the sport’s summer break, but thinks that it will boost the Maranello team given the criticism it has faced during recent seasons, due to the disappointing results.

Sebastian Vettel took his fourth victory of the 2017 Formula One season at the 2017 Hungarian Grand Prix, which allowed him to create a 14-point gap to Mercedes’ Lewis Hamilton in the drivers’ standings ahead of the 2017 Belgian Grand Prix, which is scheduled to take place at the end of August, after the usual summer break.

Given the recent events, the momentum appears to lie with Sebastian and Scuderia Ferrari, yet the German driver does not believe that leading the standings matters much heading into the month-long summer break: “Mentally, I don’t know, I think it is more important to lead the championship after the first race! But I think it is the best position to be in, you don’t want to be on the back foot. Equally the season is long, there’s a lot of races to come and a lot of things that can happen. So a long way but I think we have all the ingredients to stay there and have a good second half of the seasons.” – Sebastian Vettel said, as reported by the Italian media.

The German driver nevertheless admitted that his strong start to the season had been rewarding for the Maranello team, having struggled to make much of an impact with its car design in recent years, lagging behind the likes of Mercedes and Red Bull: “It has been rewarding for the team, indeed. It is a fact to say in the last couple of years we didn’t have the best car and a fact to say in the last few years we weren’t the strongest as developing the car. But I think if you look at the progression this year is a different story and we keep progressing. We brought a lot of bits, we have seen a lot of bits from other people copying us. But that’s a good sign and a testimony of hard and good work and the achievement that has gone into this car and this project. We will keep pushing flat out.” – Sebastian Vettel concluded.