Vettel: Suzuka shows clear Ferrari progress

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Sebastian Vettel says Ferrari’s performance in the Japanese Grand Prix shows the team has made clear progress since before the summer break.

Ferrari has slipped behind Red Bull in the constructors’ championship, with the recent one-two for Daniel Ricciardo and Max Verstappen in Malaysia particularly costly. However, having finished fourth overall from sixth on the grid and with good race pace, Vettel says the comparison with races earlier in the season shows how much Ferrari has improved.

“I think there’s been a lot of positives this weekend,” Vettel said. “Despite the penalty, the qualifying was very strong, the pace of the car was good in the race as well, we were probably the second quickest car out there. So a lot of positives.

“For sure, not entirely happy because if the podium’s there for grasp and you don’t take it then it always feels a bit disappointing. But as I said, a lot of positives. If you compare here to Silverstone, which in terms of track characteristics is similar, plus the fact it was quite windy, stuff like that, I think we’ve improved a big amount since that time.”

Vettel said high tyre degradation cost him in the fight with Lewis Hamilton in Suzuka as the Mercedes undercut the Ferrari, but Vettel says the team's strategy was not at fault on this occasion.

"I think Lewis had a very good out-lap but I ran into traffic and I lost I think one and a half seconds at the beginning of the lap, just because I couldn’t get past. I don’t know who it was who let me past, one of the Manors, who let me past him at Turn 11, which is low grip already, so I came there locked up behind him and lost another chunk. Which I think all led to the fact that we came out behind even though we were convinced we should come out in front."

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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.