Q&A Vettel frustrated

Sebastian Vettel

Despite finishing a close second to McLaren’s Lewis Hamilton on the Friday practice timesheets for this weekend’s Malaysian Grand Prix, Red Bull’s Sebastian Vettel was pretty downbeat in the Sepang paddock. Vettel reviews his progress and looks ahead to Saturday’s qualifying session…

Q: After suffering reliability issues in Bahrain and Australia, you must be feeling frustrated…
Sebastian Vettel: Yes, it is frustrating, but it’s not the end of the world. We also have a lot of positive things to take from the opening two races, as we know that our car is very fast in both qualifying and the race. We are approaching this weekend in the same way that we approached the last two – with our heads held high. I am very confident that it will not happen again.

Q: What is your target for this weekend?
SV: The same as at the last two races. We will try to win, and if we are not quick enough, we will try to get some solid points.

Q: Last year you missed out on winning the championship by five points. If things had gone to plan, you could have scored 50 points so far this season…
SV: Maybe I should have 50 points now, but this is not the case. What happened at the previous races does not matter at all. We are working very hard, especially now that we have had two rare failures. But this is life. It took a lot of points from us, but this is now history. We are focusing on this race. Our failures were not major ones, like engine failures, but as you can see small things can also have a big impact. Formula One cars are built on their limits, and that’s the name of the game. For everyone there is a chance that something can happen. We have understood what went wrong, and now I think we are on top of it.

Q: What happened during Friday practice?
SV: We had some smaller issues. Mark (Webber) obviously had to stop, and we still do not know the reason for that. We think that it was the engine, but we still have to confirm that. So we have not been 100 percent happy. We still need to be a little quicker. McLaren and Mercedes look very quick. Ferrari also have quite a decent long-run pace.

Q: Will pole position be possible on Saturday?
SV: We still have to see where we are after today, and then we will set our targets. I think for sure that we will be in Q3, so we will aim as high as possible.

Q: What do you think about the conditions here in Malaysia?
SV: Hot and humid. But they are the same for everyone. And the track is one of the tougher ones, so it will be a long race. formula1.com