Sebastian Vettel says he was pushing too hard during Friday practice for the Malaysian Grand Prix as he failed to set a medium tyre lap time due to a spin.
With running having been completed on the hard compound tyre during the first half of FP2, Vettel then spun at Turn 11 on his medium tyre run. The incident limited him to the seventh quickest time in the afternoon session while team-mate Kimi Raikkonen was second and Vettel says he was overconfident on the option tyre.
“We had the hard this morning so we had the medium this afternoon,” Vettel said. “I didn’t finish my lap … I pushed a little bit too hard. We are here to try, I tried and it went a little bit wrong.
“The spin was nothing to do with bad luck, it’s to do with me pushing a little bit too much thinking I could make it stick and I couldn’t. So I guess if you choose a day you choose today.
“I think it’s difficult to say where we are compared to Mercedes, they didn’t have a clean day. That’s not the most important thing now, that’s to look after ourselves.”
Asked about potential competition come Sunday, Vettel says he expects Ferrari will need to be wary of a number of teams.
“We’ll see. I think it will be close between us and Williams. Probably Red Bull as well and the Toro Rossos. It’s difficult to say, it’s a mixed bag. But at the front Mercedes is strong.”
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