Sebastian Vettel says he isn’t concerned about the prospect of rain during this weekend’s United States Grand Prix despite Ferrari’s struggles in wet conditions this year.
Rain is forecast throughout Friday and Saturday at the Circuit of the Americas. But Vettel says he isn’t concerned about its potential effect on Ferrari.
“I don’t think that the rain is a problem for us,” he said. “I’m not afraid when it rains. If our car is quick it will be quick when it’s dry and it will be quick when it’s wet.”Lewis Hamilton took advantage of rain in Hungary and Belgium to beat his championship rival to pole position. Vettel also crashed out while leading when rain fell at the Hockenheimring. However Vettel said he doesn’t “blame the weather” for the downturn in his championship fortunes.
“Here and there maybe it didn’t help but it was part of the game. I don’t think you can blame outside factors like the weather for anything. You have to cope with them and others coped maybe better than we did.”
With Hamilton able to clinch the championship this weekend, Vettel said his only strategy for the weekend is to try to win and then hope for the best.
“I think it’s very simple. Obviously we are quite some points behind. We focus on winning and then we see what the others are doing. So it’s quite straightforward to be honest.”
Hamilton today explained why he criticised media coverage of Vettel’s performance in recent races. Vettel said it showed the “mutual respect” between the two championship contenders.
“The respect between us has always been there, despite the fact that maybe we’re very different,” he said. “We appreciate the job the other guy is doing. I think it’s a mutual respect we have for each other.”
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Slaven (@slavichou)
18th October 2018, 22:39
Well, you kinnda should be…
spoutnik (@spoutnik)
18th October 2018, 22:58
Rain, rain, rain! And please, a true rain this time! Fingers crossed.
MaliceCooper
18th October 2018, 23:34
As much as we all want to see an awesome battle, I think the championship is done and dusted for the Silver Arrows. The big question now is who will be the champion of the B – class series? And will FE and IndyCar be more interesting than F1 in 2019?
BlackJackFan
19th October 2018, 11:02
1. Love the moniker… ;)
2. I’ve not managed to see a full FE race – only highlights, which are awful.
3. After a long, long, long time as an F1 enthusiast, in recent years I have found IndyCar to be much more interesting.
glynh (@glynh)
18th October 2018, 23:36
Rain would probably help Ferrari at this point since unpredictability is their only realistic hope in the championship. It would be nice to have a properly wet race anyway.
I don’t mind a wet qualifying but I would rather see cars at peak there then a chaotic wet race than the other way around.
Jere (@jerejj)
19th October 2018, 9:51
@glynh For me, it’s the other way round: I don’t mind a wet race, but qualifying I definitely always want to be dry so that it’d be possible to see the ultimate lap time potential any given season’s cars have around any given circuit.
glynh (@glynh)
19th October 2018, 12:50
@jerejj I agree, my comment probably wasn’t very clear. Especially with the current cars qualifying is where I like to see what they’re capable of.
pking008 (@pking008)
19th October 2018, 0:19
Okay Vettel. I’m doing my rain dance already. Let’s see how you get if it rains
Chaitanya
19th October 2018, 4:42
Yes, Ferrari aren’t afraid of rains but sure know how to patch up in rains and Sebastian sure knows how to screw up even with small drizzles.
Pjotr (@pietkoster)
19th October 2018, 10:51
No, they are afraid of Redbull. Maybe a kind gesture would help, ha, ha. Ferrari is a mess.