Sebastian Vettel, Ferrari, Bahrain International Circuit, 2020

Vettel admits attempt to get a slipstream from Russell “didn’t work”

2020 Bahrain Grand Prix

Posted on

| Written by and

Sebastian Vettel says he lost time on his final run in Q2 because he got too close to George Russell after trying to get a slipstream from the Williams.

The Ferrari driver left the pits behind his team mate Charles Leclerc and was in position to get a slipstream from him. However Leclerc passed Russell prior to the final straight. Vettel’s engineer advised him to also overtake the Williams but he was unable to.

“That obviously wasn’t ideal with the queueing,” Vettel said on his radio after the race. He told the team he “had a couple of bobbles” on his lap from turns six to nine. “Too close to Russell closing the lap,” his engineer commented. “I wanted to get the tow benefit,” said Vettel.

“The plan was obviously to have a bit of a slipstream in the last run because I was always losing time in the runs before down the straight,” Vettel explained after qualifying.

“It didn’t work because Russell was in the middle with a scrubbed soft. I don’t know what he wanted to do, maybe hoping for a miracle. And then we were a bit close, maybe sector two, sector three. It was tough because you only had one lap.”

Vettel admitted Bahrain’s long straight means it is “probably not the best track for us on paper”. The team lapped over a second slower compared to last year, though Vettel said his lap was “pretty OK.”

“It was difficult with only [having] one lap, difficult to put everything in the lap,” he said. “Naturally if you have another go maybe you find a bit more time.

“I’m not exactly happy with the lap but I think we knew coming here that if you look on the track it’s power-sensitive, it’s not the strongest for us.”

Advert | Become a RaceFans supporter and go ad-free

2020 Bahrain Grand Prix

Browse all 2020 Bahrain Grand Prix articles

6 comments on “Vettel admits attempt to get a slipstream from Russell “didn’t work””

  1. Well its good to see Vettel on top again ( compared with charles that is)
    Maybe he can close the year with something positive..

  2. Vettel is just so bad at these things. And then he blames it on others. Like Baku and Monza 2019. Like he couldn’t just drop back a bit further.

    At least Leclerc admits he messed up and blames only himself for not getting in Q3.

    Besides, Hamilton didn’t have any tow at all and still got pole.

    1. Besides, Hamilton didn’t have any tow at all and still got pole.

      Give Vettel a Mercedes and a scrub of a teammate and he wouldn’t need slipstream either. That comparison isn’t even apples and oranges, it is apples and binary star systems.

      1. @klon Utter nonsense. Bottas is in the same car, he did get a tow and did he beat Hamilton? Verstappen has a car pretty much on par (and I think he also got a tow) and did he beat Hamilton?

        1. Last posting you suggested the Red bull had a lot of development to catch up. Now its on par with a merc.
          What did you smoke?
          Its hard to keep up with the rubbish you create on these topics…

  3. Question is, why did charles overtake and not let russel go? Trying to prevent a tow?

Comments are closed.