Sebastian Vettel had had a weird second half of the season. Having been in the lead early on in the season in the driver’s championship, Vettel was expected to take the title challenge to Hamilton, as Ferrari had the superior package.
But a few mistakes from Vettel post the summer break and Ferrari losing out on its competitive advantage in the last few races meant that Hamilton was presented with a rather smooth path to his 5th title(which he should be able to clinch in Mexico).
A large part of the issue has been the amount of times Vettel has spun in the last few races, something that the 4 time champion finds weird.
He attributed that to a downforce ‘hole’ that the Ferrari package has especially when it is near other cars.
Vettel conceded that there was very little that he could have done differently in all of his spins, claiming that it is only logical to go on the inside.
“It is not like I had gone in too fast or would have spun on my own at that speed, not at all.
“So I guess there must be some sort of hole or something being on the inside of a car in that position. Obviously on all three occasions I wasn’t clearly ahead, at best side-by-side, so as I said, maybe next time I try the outside.” Vettel said.
“Maybe I need to try the outside next time, maybe I don’t spin
“Obviously you want to have the inside to the corner, that doesn’t change. But I don’t know. The closer you are to another car, you lose some downforce, and obviously the spins I had were all quite weird because there was not much I could have done [differently].” he added.
Going forward, Vettel feels that while he might not necessarily change his style and will keep going for any gap that there is, but he will have the spins at the back of his mind.
“The main thing is that fundamentally I didn’t try to do anything silly or stupid,” he said.
“I wasn’t hard-headed trying to do something that would never work.
“Obviously now it has happened a couple of times, too much. So next time there will be a gap, I am sure I will go for a gap, but surely it is in the back of your head trying to keep the car facing the right direction.” he concluded.
Do you think Vettel will spin again this weekend or do you think he will somehow manage to take the title race to Brazil?
