Categories: F1 News, Reports and Race ResultsFerrari

Vettel surprised by Ferrari failures

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Sebastian Vettel has been left surprised by Ferrari's reliability problems at the start of the season after failing to start the Bahrain Grand Prix.

On the formation lap ahead of the race, Vettel suffered a power unit failure and pulled off the track with smoke pouring from the back of his Ferrari. With team-mate Kimi Raikkonen retiring from the Australian Grand Prix with a turbo problem, Vettel says the problems which have struck are unexpected.

"I don’t know, we lost power, we saw smoke coming out and we decided to stop," Vettel said. "I was surprised with what Kimi had in Australia. I think we fixed it but if it is the same thing again probably not, but I don’t think it is."

Raikkonen went on to finish second in the Bahrain Grand Prix to add to Vettel's third place in Australia. However, with Mercedes winning both races and adding two further podiums, the defending constructors' champion already holds a 50-point lead in the standings.

"It was frustrating ... we will see what happened and whether the engine has damage or not," Vettel added.

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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.