Categories: F1 News, Reports and Race ResultsFerrari

Arrivabene praises ‘unbelievable’ Vettel

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Ferrari team principal Maurizio Arrivabene says Sebastian Vettel “was unbelievable” as he won the Malaysian Grand Prix.

Vettel beat Lewis Hamilton by over eight seconds as Ferrari showed impressive long run pace and tyre management to beat the previously dominant Mercedes. With Vettel two-stopping to win and team-mate Kimi Raikkonen recovering from 11th on the grid and a first lap puncture to finish fourth, Arrivabene was full of praise for Ferrari’s strategy and Vettel’s execution of the race.

“Yesterday when we had qualifying I was part happy and part not,” Arrivabene said. “But the car of Seb was up there. Normally I don’t know why people in this world are not talking very openly, so this morning we had the brief. During the brief I saw the strategy and one slide after the other, the conversation with the engineer, then suddenly the race was becoming very clear and I said, ‘Ha ha, here we can do something interesting’.

“I have to say the discipline of the guys was amazing and the job of Seb was unbelievable. I have to congratulate also Kimi because he caught bad luck but still, from last position, was able to do a good job.

“During the race I was thinking about the briefing of this morning and I was looking at the discipline of the guys, drivers, engineers, and how they were working like a Swiss watch. But in this case it was a perfect Italian watch!”

Click here for Sunday's gallery from the Malaysian Grand Prix

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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.