Sebastian Vettel Earns Wrath of Italian Press After Australian GP

Valtteri Bottas won the season-opener, Lewis Hamilton emerged the second-best, Max Verstappen occupied the third step of the podium and well, there was nothing in store as such for Ferrari and Sebastian Vettel.

Right?

How else is one going to describe a lukewarm P4 gathered by four-time world champion Sebastian Vettel, If the 2019 Australian Grand Prix could be summed up in a single expression then probably it won’t be wrong to call it a Merc-dominated event. On the other hand, however, it wasn’t really an exciting event for Ferrari, past winners on at Albert Park where 2018 and 2017 results are concerned.

To that end, it isn’t entirely difficult to understand why the Italian media ‘blasted’ Sebastian Vettel for what’s being called ‘weak’ performance.

Well, truth be told, any position outside of top three, does, in fact, seem lackadaisical from the perspective of Sebastian Vettel, who, in his own right, is among the most successful drivers of all time.

On top of it, that Ferrari clinched the Australian Grand Prix from the onset of 2017 onward, in itself speaks of their utter dominance at the venue.

But in grabbing no better than fourth, Sebastian Vettel, who finished just ahead of Charles Leclerc, earned the wrath of the Italian media, who didn’t hold back from expressing its version of the German’s effort in the opening race of the new season.

This frustration or show of emotion actually isn’t hard to understand for the simple reason that Ferrari, as seen all throughout the winter-testing seemed one of the faster cars on the grid.

The paddock was therefore stunned to see how unimpressive was the SF 90, especially having appeared quicker than the lot.

On that note, Mattia Binotto shared that there was no reason for Ferrari to panic especially at the end of what’s only been the curtain raiser for 2019.

“We need to analyse what happened here in peace at the factory, “said the new team boss.