Autosportfoto

Vettel: Win demonstrates Ferrari’s strong 2017 despite F1 title pain

Sebastian Vettel feels his victory in Brazil is further evidence of Ferrari's re-emergence as a dominant force in Formula 1 while treating the win at as distraction from missing out on world titles.

Sebastian Vettel feels his victory at the Brazilian Grand Prix is further evidence of Ferrari's re-emergence as a dominant force in Formula 1 while treating the win as a distraction from the heartache of missing out on world titles in 2017.

The four-time F1 world champion clinched his fifth victory of the season, and first since July in Hungary, after sprinting past Valtteri Bottas at the first corner before controlling his pace to keep clear of the charging Mercedes to take the chequered flag.

While refusing to hide the pain of missing out on the F1 drivers' world title last time out in Mexico, and accepting criticism from Ferrari President Sergio Marchionne over driver errors, Vettel has repeated his believe in the strong progress the Italian manufacturer has made in 2017 which he hopes leads to "domination" of the sport from next season.

Vettel sees Brazil GP win as tonic for "tough couple of weeks"
"I think it's a good job that we have races now because it helps to get over it because you're distracted," Vettel said. "I think it's tough as in the past you didn't have to deal with this so it's not to say I was quite fortunate but I think it helps to just have something to do, to be honest.

"Overall I think it was very positive this year. Nobody expected Ferrari to be that strong, for us to be that strong. We made the biggest step, there was a lot of talk about other people but in the end we were there from the start and also until the end.

"We are two races to go, we are in a position to fight for victory, we won here, two cars on the podium. I think there's a lot of positives. Of course if you miss out it sucks."

Vettel has underlined his demand on Ferrari to maintain its development battle against Mercedes as he targets another title challenge in 2018.

"We hadn't been very competitive last year, we hadn't been very good developing the car and we've made massive progress this year so even if you look at the chance that you missed, you have to give credit to all the people, to all the team for the step that we made," he said.

"I think we can all feel that we're getting stronger so hopefully we can carry that strength into the next couple of years, not just next year, not just the winter but also the future because I think our objective is to bring Ferrari back properly, get there and dominate. That's what we want to do."

Zdroj: crash.net