Vettel never feared he would lose Canadian GP

Sebastian Vettel never felt at any point during Sunday’s Canadian Grand Prix that he would lose the race, having controlled proceedings en route to his third Formula 1 win of the season.

Vettel led from lights-to-flag en route to Ferrari’s first win in Canada since 2004, reclaiming the lead of the drivers’ championship in the process as title rival Lewis Hamilton finished down in fifth.

After making a good start, Vettel quickly moved over a second clear of Valtteri Bottas to escape DRS range, with the buffer slowly growing through the race.

Apart from losing time through traffic when lapping cars, Vettel never looked at risk of losing in Montreal, and said after the race he always felt it was under control.

“Not really, I think I was under control,” Vettel said when asked if he thought he would lose the race at any point.

“I managed the gap to Valtteri. During the first stint I tried to build up a little bit of a cushion. I had one lock up when I lost of a bit of time, but after that I think it was fairly well managed. It wasn’t easy with the traffic and so on, but in the end, I was just praying that we don’t run into a problem which can always happen. So I tried to save the car a little bit, just stay away from the kerbs, and just bring it home.”

Victory capped off a strong weekend for Vettel that saw him recover from a difficult practice on Friday before surging to pole the following day.

“It’s been a really good weekend. Yesterday was perfect, Friday was difficult, but we bounced back,” Vettel said.

“With the improvements we made for this weekend, mostly on the power unit, introducing a new engine helped us around this track probably a bit more than other tracks, but it was a team effort. It goes hand in hand.”