Categories: F1 News, Reports and Race ResultsFerrari

Ferrari 'much more fired up' in 2015 - Vettel

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Sebastian Vettel says Ferrari is "much more fired up" this season than it was during its struggles last year.

The four-time world champion joined Ferrari over the winter having moved from Red Bull to replace the outgoing Fernando Alonso. Having been in the Ferrari garage during the post-season test in Abu Dhabi a year ago, Vettel says the 12 months he has spent at Maranello have shown a clear change in attitude within the team.

“I think it’s pretty clear things have changed inside Ferrari compared to the year before," Vettel said. "People are much more fired up and there were big changes over the last winter with new talent on board and people shifting positions. Big changes are not easy to digest for a big team but I think we managed things pretty well throughout the season to improve the car, the engine, the power unit and we can be pretty happy."

Scoring Ferrari's season, Vettel said the team deserves an eight for the recovery it has delivered this year.

"I’d only give ourselves a ten if we would have won the championship, but considering all the things I’ve just explained and the difficulties we had at the start of the season I’d mark this season between a seven and a nine."

And reflecting on his personal performance Vettel says there have been few low points for him in his first year at Ferrari but admits he was disappointed with one recent race in particular.

"The worst moment of the season is easy to chose: crashing into the barriers in Mexico and having the spin before, so it was not a good race in spite of the pace we have.

"For the best one I think I’ll have to choose Malaysia. Already on the week before I had a highlight starting the season with a podium in my first race with Ferrari. To follow that one week later with a win was fantastic. I was happy on the podium a couple of times before but that one felt really special."

Unfinished business: the scores still to be settled in Abu Dhabi

Chris Medland's Abu Dhabi Grand Prix preview

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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.