Vettel 'one lap away' from overhauling Bottas

Sebastian Vettel, Ferrari, Austrian Grand Prix

Sebastian Vettel was ruing a near-miss in Sunday's Austrian Grand Prix at the Red Bull Ring. He was also still in disbelief that the race winner hadn't been penalised for a jump start.

The Ferrari driver was just 0.658s away from catching Mercedes' Valtteri Bottas at the end of the 71-lap race. However, Vettel encountered lapped traffic which meant that he wasn't quite able to clinch the win.

"How would you feel if you were just shy of half a second behind the winner?" a clearly disappointed Vettel said afterwards.

"The last laps it was getting really close," he continued. "I was told he was in trouble, and I was pushing anyway.

"I think I needed one more lap because he was really struggling to get up the hill."

Getting held up on the penultimate lap had probably been the final decider in the matter. "I think I had Perez, which cost me a little time with lapped cars," he added.

"Obviously I wanted to win, but nevertheless a good result."

Bottas clings on to take victory in the Austrian Grand Prix

Up until the final laps it had been a relatively quiet race for Vettel. He admitted that Bottas's phenomenally quick start had been a distraction to him during the early laps.

"From my point of view he jumped the start," Vettel insisted. "I was sure that he did. It looked like it from the inside of the car. But it's not for me to judge it at the end of the day."

Told that Bottas' reaction time had been timed at 0.201s, Vettel replied succinctly: "I don't believe that!!

Bottas' lightning fast reactions made Vettel's own start look sluggish, but he insisted that this wasn't the case.

"Probably [the start] was a bit late because it's quite tricky then to keep standing still. I think it was okay. I had a bit of wheel spin later on, but overall I thought it was a good start."

After that, Vettel's Austrian Grand Prix proved to be a tale of two sets of tyres.

"I felt much happier in the second stint, the second half of the race," he said. "The first half I was struggling a bit to feel the car.

"But as soon as we put the supersoft tyre on, the car came alive. I had really good pace. I was catching little by little."

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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.