Sebastian Vettel admits he ‘cannot make promises’ as to when Ferrari will return to winning ways, despite the German finishing a strong third at the Italian Grand Prix.
Vettel enjoyed a great launch from P3 on the grid and came close to leading into the first corner, as he had done previously this season in Australia and Canada. But as Lewis Hamilton recovered to second after his poor start, the Ferrari driver had to settle for the final step of the podium.
“We try and we are working very hard,” said Vettel, who had not finished in the top three since last June’s European Grand Prix in Baku.
“[Mercedes] are doing a very good job so you have to say well done to them and show them the respect for what they have achieved in the last couple of years but we are fighting.
“I’m sure we can comeback. I can’t make any promises about when but I know that we will. We will keep it up and keep believing and I am sure we will succeed.”
Having started on the supersoft compound, Vettel went for an aggressive two-stop strategy that left him on fresher tyres at the end of the race but the four-time world champion concedes he could not reel in the one-stopping Hamilton.
“[Lewis] did one stop less so it was clear that after our second stop he would be ahead of us and I think the problem is that he was too far ahead of us, simple as that.
“We were slightly quicker, we were on a fresher set of tyres but not quick enough to really catch up. At the end, the gap was still fairly big.”
Vettel won three races in 2015 for his first year with Ferrari, the last of which came at Singapore nearly 12 months ago.
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