Categories: F1 News, Reports and Race ResultsFerrari

Button didn’t expect Vettel success at Ferrari

Jenson Button admits he didn’t expect Sebastian Vettel would be as competitive as he has been at Ferrari so far this season.

Vettel left Red Bull at the end of 2014 to join Ferrari having already secured four drivers’ championships form 2010-2013. Having replaced Button’s now team-mate Fernando Alonso - who scored just two podiums for Ferrari last season - Vettel has finished on the podium at all but one of the six races so far this season, winning in Malaysia.

With Daniel Ricciardo outperforming Vettel at Red Bull last year, Button concedes he didn’t expect the four-time world champion to be so successful at the start of his Ferrari career.

“Sebastian for four years did an amazing job and a lot of people said it was the team around him doing a great, he just had to finish it off,” Button told F1i. “Then Daniel in England we would say ‘put some manners on him’, but basically did a better job than Sebastian did last year. A much better job, he won three races, Sebastian won no races, so his stock dropped massively I think.

“He did the right thing to move teams and he’s gone to Ferrari and he seems to have done a very good job. So to win in his second grand prix with Ferrari is very impressive, obviously the car is a very good car now compared to last year when Fernando was driving it but it’s amazing how things change around for teams and for drivers. I didn’t expect him to be so quick at Ferrari.”

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Andrew Lewin

Andrew first became a fan of Formula 1 during the time when Michael Schumacher and Damon Hill were stepping into the limelight after the era of Alain Prost, Nigel Mansell and Aryton Senna. He's been addicted ever since, and has been writing about the sport now for nearly a quarter of a century for a number of online news sites. He's also written professionally about GP2 (now Formula 2), GP3, IndyCar, World Rally Championship, MotoGP and NASCAR. In his other professional life, Andrew is a freelance writer, social media consultant, web developer/programmer, and digital specialist in the fields of accessibility, usability, IA, online communities and public sector procurement. He worked for many years in magazine production at Bauer Media, and for over a decade he was part of the digital media team at the UK government's communications department. Born and raised in Essex, Andrew currently lives and works in south-west London.