Ahead of the Spanish Grand Prix Sebastian Vettel was playing down his antagonism towards the Ferrari team that was very evident last week at Silverstone’s 70th Anniversary event.
His open hostility over the radio towards his team, during which he said, “You know you’ve messed up”, and his subsequent post-race criticism of Ferrari’s strategy and tyre choices had many questioning whether the partnership could even run its contracted term until the end of this season.
At Barcelona he was attributing that outburst to the emotion of the race – which had gone badly – and its immediate aftermath and implied it was unrepresentative of the reality of the relationship.
He also conceded that the idea of him not continuing with the team until the end of the season was not a decision that involved only him, the implication being he acknowledged the possibility of him being dropped.
Team principal Mattia Binotto, not for the first time this year embarrassed by Vettel’s public frankness, was quick to retort after last week’s race that any strategy shortfalls were second-order problems compared to Vettel spinning to the back of the field at the first corner.
The apparently strained relations between driver and team boss began some months ago when Binotto informed Vettel that there would be no place for him in the 2021 Ferrari team. Vettel had been expecting to at least negotiate and his displeasure at what had unfolded was reflected by his going public with the sequence of events, obliging Binotto to further explain the situation.
“It’s never relaxed if things don’t go your way or they go wrong,” said Vettel in Barcelona.
“So naturally if you judge just the emotions right after or during the race I don’t think that’s a fair reflection of what is actually going on.
“I didn’t have a great race… We tried to come back up and we could have opted for maybe a different strategy but we didn’t.
“We talked about it, sorted it out and moved on so there’s not much difference in terms of climate in the team compared to the week before. Or even before then.”
Vettel’s whole mindset, he said, was on getting a smooth race so as to allow him to show more representative form.
“My last race wasn’t my best and I think whatever the situation is I trust the people around me and the guys working on my car,” he continued.
“I think we are all trying to have a smoother race. The last races weren’t smooth. It was very different across the garage. Charles [Leclerc] was in a better position in the race, which he earned from qualifying.
“I struggled because of a lack of confidence. Lack of confidence is a lack of grip. Not just that you feel uncomfortable driving the car but it’s coming from somewhere.
“We are still trying to understand where exactly it comes from but we have to make progress and move on.”
Vettel has a new chassis this weekend, with Ferrari confirming a tiny crack was found in that of his Silverstone car.
Did he expect that to cure the problem that saw him qualify respectively 0.912s and 0.369s slower than Leclerc in the British and 70th Anniversary grands prix?
“In our business you’re measuring a lot of stuff, with a lot of sensors on the car and normally you get a lot of answers. But sometimes you don’t get the answers that you like.
“Other times you’re not getting an answer at all, which is pretty much a reflection of life as well when sometimes you’re looking for an answer and you might not get one.
“Then it is important to trust in your feeling, the feeling you get as a driver in the car, what you can and can’t do and then trust in yourself and keep going forwards.
“That’s one of the situations we are in: we might get an answer, we might never get an answer. Ultimately it doesn’t change anything in how we progress from here. I’m quite clear about that and therefore fairly open minded and looking forward to doing my best.”
In all it was a much more conciliatory tone than that shown at Silverstone.
Asked about the idea he and Ferrari may split before the end of the season, Vettel replied: “I don’t know. I don’t think so. We haven’t even considered or spoken about it.
“But it’s not just a question for myself.”
