’No panic’ despite difficult start - Vettel

Sebastian Vettel says there is no "panic" despite his difficult start to on-track life with Aston Martin.

"Ten years ago there would have been panic," the quadruple world champion and former Ferrari driver said after the one and only pre-season test.

The German suffered from technical problems in Bahrain.

"I’m definitely missing about 100 laps," said the 33-year-old. "We just have to live with that now."

But he resisted the temptation to blame Aston Martin’s technical partner, Mercedes.

"The components are on our car and mixed with our own components," said Vettel. "In the end, a fault is always a bit more on one side or the other, but that’s not important. The only important thing is that it is fixed."

Not just that, Vettel is also struggling to adapt to a totally different car.

"It is built according to a different philosophy," he is quoted by Auto Motor und Sport. "It wants to be driven differently.

"It’s only small things, but the sum of the details adds up. I now expect a steep learning curve in the first races.

"It has started a bit bumpy, but the season is still long."

Therefore, he insists there is no panic.

"I’ve been around for so long that it doesn’t bother you so much anymore. And panicking doesn’t help anyway," he said.

Vettel said he isn’t sure where Aston Martin currently stands in the 2021 pecking order.

"We simply haven’t done a lot of runs that can be compared with other cars," he said.