11th-placed Vettel banks on race pace

Sebastian Vettel is putting his faith in good race pace in tomorrow’s Chinese Grand Prix after he missed the Q3 cut in qualifying for the first time since the Brazilian Grand Prix of 2009.

Then, the Red Bull Racing driver qualified 16th after being caught out by a heavy thunderstorm, but yesterday he was dumped out before the top-10 shootout on raw pace alone, being beaten to the final Q3 position by Lotus’ Romain Grosjean, who finished a tenth of a second ahead of Vettel. However, despite the result, Vettel refused to blame his 11th place on the older spec exhaust layout he opted to run this weekend, saying that this version of the RB8 is still his preferred option. “Yesterday, I was quite happy. Happy with the car, happy with the packaging, which is why we decided to keep it,” he said. “I don’t think it’s right to blame the package now. In terms of long-run pace, I was pretty happy yesterday and I think we should be in good shape [in the race].”

The defending champion did admit, however, that despite the better feel of the old package, he had found limit of its performance in qualifying here with his 11th place. “I was pretty happy with the car in qualifying and I think we did a step forward compared to the morning,” he said. “Whereas in the morning the balance was pretty awkward and I had quite a lot of oversteer, in the afternoon I was happier. However, I think that doing the same lap time three times in qualifying showed that this was more or less it. It was not as if there was another tenth or couple of tenths on the table.

“I don’t think we missed out. I just don’t think it was quick enough at the time,” he added. “It’s not as if we are missing an awful lot. Q2 was exceptionally close. “It was a special session as well, if you look at other people and [what happened with the track] temperatures. Run to run there seemed to be quite a big difference in lap time, sometimes more than half a second for some people.”

Vettel’s chance of battling his way towards the front could depend on the fortunes of the front-row Mercedes pairing of Nico Rosberg and Michael Schumacher. Rosberg put in a superb Q3 lap to secure his first pole position by more than half a second, while Schumacher posted the session’s third best time but will start on the front row due to second-placed Lewis Hamilton incurring a five-place grid penalty because of a gearbox change on his McLaren.

However, while Mercedes qualifying pace has been impressive this season, poor race pace has been an issue for the team, as Vettel was quick to point out. “Today the pace of Mercedes was a surprise but we will see what will happen with them in the race but I think McLaren is still the favourite for race pace.”