In eleventh place, Sebastian Vettel ended up just outside the top 10 in Baku on Friday, but the German is convinced that Aston Martin still has room for improvement. Although he got along reasonably well on the medium tires, the four-time world champion wasn’t able to get everything out of his car on the soft tires.
“I think we know roughly where we need to go, but I wasn’t quite happy with the soft for one lap,” says Vettel, who was 1.557 seconds behind leader Charles Leclerc, to “Sky”. “We know there’s still a little bit left to come and we should have a little bit left.”
However, the German does not see any major problems on the soft tires: “I just had a bit of a balance change on the soft tires, understeering,” he says, “and I think we could have been a bit more aggressive there, too the set-up is concerned.”
The car just “didn’t feel so round,” as he describes it. “And if a bit of confidence goes away, then that’s reflected in the lap time,” said Vettel.
However, he also has a few ideas for the rest of the weekend on how to get a little faster. Will that take him into Q3 on Saturday and thus into the top 10? “I think it’s going to be tight,” says Vettel. “I think if we can get in there somewhere around tenth place, then that’s a huge success for us.”
He knows Aston Martin has to be realistic with its expectations. “We don’t have any new parts here,” he says. “Now we’re trying to get the best out of our package and then we’ll see.”