Tyre issues caused Vettel’s two-stop strategy – Sebastian Vettel has revealed that he was struggling with his tyres throughout the Spanish Grand Prix and as a result of that caused him to pit for a second time. Vettel stopped first on lap 17, ditching the softs and taking on the medium compound.
The virtual safety car was deployed after Esteban Ocon pulled off the circuit with an engine issue. Vettel was called into the pits and gave up track position to Bottas. But the slow stop by the Ferrari mechanics meant that the Vettel dropped behind Max Verstappen.
Vettel failed to get past Verstappen despite him running a damaged front wing. On claims that Ferrari threw away points through a botched strategy, Vettel says that they simply had no choice but to stop again.
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“For us it was not an option to stay out,” he said. “We were going through the tyres quicker than the others today. It looks different and it looks wrong, but from the inside I think it was the right thing to do.
“Overall we were a little bit quicker (than Verstappen) but as the laps went on, we just didn’t have enough pace. He was doing more or less the same [lap times]. We were just not quick enough and even at the end I was not in a healthy shape with the tyres even though mine were the freshest.
“It’s hard to say how it would have been without the [compound] change. I think it probably impacted more on us than the others. Overall it has been a decent weekend, we just need to understand for tyres what to do. I think we have the same ones for Paul Ricard and Silverstone so we need to have a look.”