While Sebastian Vettel acknowledged Ferrari's relative lack of pace over the weekend, the German insisted his third place podium finish was no gift, and achieved on merit and as a result of a good strategic call.
Vettel suffered from a poor start which dropped him as low as ninth from his sixth place starting position on the grid. But when the rain started to fall, the German perfectly timed his pit stop change to intermediates, which boosted the Ferrari up to a third place podium finish.
"It was not a Christmas gift, Santa Claus wasn't there waiving me to the pits," Vettel insisted. "It was our own decision and obviously not a lot of people got it right, but we did. That is our choice and that's what we achieved today. Yes, without the rain we would not be on the podium. It helped us today, we came in on the perfect lap."
Still, Vettel expected Ferrari to be stronger over the weekend as the Italian outfit was caught somewhat off guard by Williams qualifying pace.
"I don't think we took a step back, but we just couldn't find the right direction this weekend. There are things we need to understand. Surely the tires are not in our favour but that's the same for everyone, so we need to make sure that we are at least as quick as the others and not struggling with that. Hungary will be a different track, we'll be looking forward to that but there's plenty of home work."
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