Sebastian Vettel was at a loss to explain his poor performance at the British Grand Prix, where he finished tenth as teammate Charles Leclerc claimed Ferrari’s second podium of the season.
Vettel was on the back foot from the beginning of the weekend, with car issues robbing him of track time during Friday practice, but he never looked like he was comfortable with the car. He qualified in the same position he finished and spent much of the race outside of the points on merit.
He rose to inherit tenth position late on after Valtteri Bottas dropped own the order following his late puncture, something which also elevated Leclerc, who had been running fourth for most of the race. Vettel, who won the British Grand Prix for Ferrari in 2018, had no idea what the root of his issues were.
“The result was very poor, but the car was very difficult to drive,” Vettel said. “I struggled to find confidence, and I don’t know why, so we need to have a good look.
“But certainly if I struggled for so many laps in the race and it was the beginning to the end, there’s something that probably doesn’t stack up.”
Vettel said he spent the whole race trying to get the car to do what he wanted it to do, meaning he was unable to try and move up the order in the grand prix.
“It was not a very stressful race, I just didn’t have a chance. People around me were faster than me, I got overtaken. It was very difficult… to stay on track, so basically it was not a tough race at all because I could never attack – the car didn’t allow me to do what I like. So now we need to have a look why and now obviously we have the next weekend so we can try and do better.”
After four races, Vettel is 13th out of 20 in the drivers’ championship.