Vettel hopes for Ferrari party after Hamilton dig

Sebastian Vettel has hit back at Lewis Hamilton’s post-qualifying comments and wants Ferrari to enjoy its own party by taking victory in the 2018 Formula 1 opener in Australia.

The four-time F1 world champion conceded he made an error on his final qualifying lap at turn 13 which left him trailing Ferrari teammate Kimi Raikkonen to take third place on the grid for the F1 opener at Albert Park.

But both Ferrari drivers were blown away by Lewis Hamilton and Mercedes with a lap record pole position time of 1m 21.164s to pull out over six-tenths of a second on the Italian manufacturer.

In the post-qualifying FIA press conference, Hamilton quipped his lap “wiped the smile off Vettel’s face” after the German accused the reigning F1 world champions of a qualifying engine mode which Hamilton denies that Mercedes uses.

Vettel says Hamilton can enjoy his pole position but is hopeful of Ferrari striking back in the race and pull off a repeat from 12 months ago when he bolted past pole-sitter Hamilton to win in Australia.

“What goes around comes around, obviously on Saturdays he’s doing pretty well,” Vettel said of Hamilton. “He’s free to have a party tonight and then hopefully Kimi and myself will have a party tomorrow.

“I hope they did turn it on today, as that means they have turn it off tomorrow. I think it’s very close. We saw yesterday in the long runs that the pace is very close, so let’s see. It’s not the easiest place to overtake but who knows, if we have an opportunity at the start and then in the race you never know.”

Vettel is also wary of the threat Red Bull pose with its race pace despite seeing off the Milton Keynes-based team during qualifying.

“I think in terms of race pace we should be closer,” he said. “We were closer yesterday and then we see but it depends how close we can be. We have more cars now in range and it probably changes a little bit in the race as well. We’ll see.”