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Vettel eyeing repeat Canada start in Baku

Sebastian Vettel expects Ferrari to have another strong start in the Grand Prix of Europe but predicts a number of errors throughout the race.

Starting from third on the grid in Montreal last weekend, Vettel got an impressive launch to beat both Mercedes drivers into Turn 1 and lead the first part of the race. Vettel will again start third in Baku - after a gearbox penalty for Sergio Perez drops the Force India five places from second to seventh - and is confident of another clean getaway.

“Yeah it’s possible, it depends also what the others are doing," Vettel said. "I think we had good practice starts this weekend and we should have a decent start. On top of that with a bit of luck with the gearbox penalty we start on the clean side so we will see.

"It’s going to be a long race, yes the start will be important, it always is important but it will be more important to finish the race and I think it will be a difficult one.

"We’ve seen all weekend that I think everybody has done little mistakes here and there, some have been more costly than others but in that regard it will be a long race.”

However, Vettel acknowledges the start is unlikely to prove as crucial as in many other races, with a high probability of safety cars and a long straight opening up slipstreaming opportunities on any restarts.

“Well apart from P1 it has been fairly close. There is obviously a high likelihood of safety cars, which is just the nature of the track, there isn’t much room. If somebody goes straight or loses the car obviously it can cause a safety car easily and then the restart will be quite interesting.

"The straight is very, very, very, very, very long so it depends where you are. If you are in front it’s probably not what you wish for, if you are behind then yes if you see that chance to do something.

"If you are the third or fourth car down the road it’s not that powerful anymore because the cars in front have the tow as well but still I think we find out tomorrow how easy or how difficult it is to pass around here and how much the long straight will help but surely from the safety car restart it can be very interesting.”

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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.