Sebastian Vettel: What’s done is done!

It’s a feeling of frustration that engulfed the Ferrari garages at the end of the Canadian Grand Prix. Sebastian Vettel certainly managed to salvage the situation, but everyone hoped for better than a fourth and seventh place finish for the German and his teammate, Kimi Räikkönen.

Of course, the eventful start of the race was decisive in the final outcome, as the four-time world champion explains: « I think my start wasn’t particularly good, but at the same time, it’s not that bad. The car was good, I think it was clear that today we could have been better than fourth place, but that’s how we finished and what’s done, is done. Overall, we know we have a strong car. At the start, Bottas and I were trying to go inside when Max [Verstappen] came, but these things can happen. »

No one is to blame, except for bad luck then. Ferrari did try to react with a bold two-pit-stop strategy, but it was already too late to aim for the podium: « Then, with the safety car on the track, I didn’t realize the damage to the front wing was so significant, we only noticed it at high speed. There was also additional damage to other parts of the bodywork, which cost me in lap time, but the car wasn’t like the one I had driven over the past two days. Yet, the pace was there, and I would have liked more laps to finish on the podium, the trophy here seemed nice… It was my target, and I missed it. But we are growing as a team. »

Bad luck didn’t spare Kimi Räikkönen either, who, on the same strategy as Vettel, had to slow down to preserve his brakes at the end of the race: « Unfortunately, we had the problem with the brakes and couldn’t really use our speed. In the last ten laps, I barely had any brakes left. It’s a shame, but at least we were able to bring the car home and get some points. »

But once again, for the Finnish driver, it was at the start that his race was decided: “At the start, I spun quite a bit and obviously we lost a few places. From that moment, it wasn’t an easy race. I struggled during the first laps as it was difficult to overtake. We decided to change our strategy to a two-stop approach to create a speed difference with fresh tires.” However, this was without more success for the Ferraris.