Vettel believes Singapore to be the ‘turning’ point

Sebastian Vettel has claimed that his and Ferrari’s title contentions went up in smoke in Singapore, rather than Germany, where he crashed out whilst in the lead. Hamilton went on to win from fourteenth on the grid.

“None of the two, to be honest,” he said when asked if the German or Italian GP turned the tide for him. “For me it was more Singapore.”

“I think, yeah, from Singapore onwards we just didn’t have the pace to keep up with Mercedes for a couple of races and then obviously some other things happened on top that didn’t help and we couldn’t score the points due to mistakes that we did, mistakes that I did. So it didn’t help.”

Vettel also went on to state that he was not being hard on himself for Germany, that it was all part of racing. “I can’t be too hard on myself with what happened in Germany because it’s not like… I’ve done much bigger mistakes this year but obviously it was the most costly one,” he said.

“Unfortunately it’s part of racing: when you push you might be sometimes pushing a little bit too hard. I chose the wrong corner as well. But anyway, it’s behind me and I’m not really thinking about that too much.”

“I consider it part of racing and it happens to others as well. So, but yeah, seeing that struggled in the last couple of weeks, just for pace and speed was probably more defining than that.”

Being a four-time world champion is not a mean feat and Vettel did it consecutively. He surely knows the perils and mental strength it requires to last an entire season and vowed to give it his all even though the title is decided.

“It’s what you work for the whole year and when you are not anymore in control, it’s obviously not a great moment but I think it’s normal as well to have that moment of disappointment and that you are a bit down but I think I will be as strong as I can be in two weeks’ time heading to Brazil,” he concluded.