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Rewarding for Ferrari to lead championship into summer break - Vettel

Sebastian Vettel is refusing to read too much into his advantage at the top of the Formula 1 drivers' championship heading into the sport's summer break, but feels it will boost the Ferrari team given the criticism it has faced in recent years.

Vettel took his fourth victory of the season in Sunday's Hungarian Grand Prix to open up a 14-point gap to Mercedes' Lewis Hamilton in the drivers' standings.

The momentum appears to lie with Vettel and Ferrari, but the German does not believe that leading the standings matters much heading into the month-long summer break.

"Mentally, I don't know, I think it's more important to lead the championship after the first race!" Vettel said.

"But I think it's 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"

Vettel nevertheless conceded that his strong start to the season had been rewarding for Ferrari, having struggled to make much of an impact with its car design in recent years, lagging behind the likes of Mercedes ad Bull.

It's been rewarding for the team. It's 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," Vettel said.

"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."

Zdroj: crash.net