Categories: F1 News, Reports and Race ResultsFerrari

Vettel promises 'maximum attack' in drivers' standings

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Sebastian Vettel promises to go on "maximum attack" to ensure he finishes as high as possible in the drivers' championship this season.

The four-time world champion has been third for the majority of the season, and is currently just 21 points behind Nico Rosberg in second place. With Lewis Hamilton a further 53 points clear of Rosberg, Vettel admits he is not realistically targeting the title but says he will not settle for third place in the standings.

"The goal in the championship is maximum attack," Vettel said. "Obviously Nico is closer to us compared to Lewis, who is further away. But as long as the chance is there we need to try and make everything possible that we can try and do. Being realistic, Lewis is now in a very good position."

And Vettel had praise for Hamilton's recent form, saying people sometimes underestimate how well a driver is performing when they are in the best car.

"Speaking about Lewis I don’t think there’s a doubt he belongs in Formula One – he’s very quick and naturally very talented. Of course at the moment he has a very, very strong package and a very strong team, but I had years where I was with a very strong team and strong group of people but you still need to be at the top of your game to extract the results every weekend. I’m sure he’s working hard when he’s at the track to do everything he can and lately he’s had a good run."

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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.