Vettel: I should have taken more risk

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Sebastian Vettel feels he did not take enough of a risk during qualifying for the Austrian Grand Prix after finishing fourth.

A rain-hit Q3 saw drivers heading out on slick tyres for their final runs on a drying track, with lap times constantly dropping. In the end it was Lewis Hamilton who took pole position ahead of team-mate Nico Rosberg and Force India's Nico Hulkenberg. Vettel qualified fourth but having been fastest in FP3 knew the pace was there if he took more risks.

"I think in the end it was a lucky draw, it was a question of how much risk you were taking, it was a question of when you were crossing the line, the later the better," Vettel said. "So, yeah. In these conditions the only reference is the lap before and then taking into consideration that it’s drier on the next lap. How much, you don’t know.

"With hindsight I wasn’t taking enough risk but then again I think all three cars that were ahead were taking more risks, they were behind me on track so arguable had better track conditions as well. That’s not an excuse, that’s a fact.

"But as I said I should have taken more risk. In the end it came down to one lap which is basically all the way Q3 went."

And Vettel feels he had a realistic chance of taking pole position heading into qualifying, even though he knew he would have to take a five-place grid penalty after the session.

“I think it was looking very good this morning. Also considering we didn’t put everything together this morning the feeling was very good. The car was very good and a bit of a shame we didn’t get to see head-to-head in Q3 with two sets of ultrasoft and no playing around with different compounds and so on.

"But that’s what it was so we take it from there. It should be good news for tomorrow, the pace was looking quite strong."

And Vettel expects to be able to benefit from any weather conditions having progressed through Q2 on supersoft tyres.

"Let’s put it this way: if it’s dry I’m happy I’m on the supersoft, if it’s wet I think it could be easier to make progress. But then again who knows what the weather is going to be like? They say it’s going to be cooler and there’s a likelihood of rain, I think the latest forecast reckons there’s a high chance that the race will be completely dry so I don’t know.”

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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.