Vettel praises Ferrari’s engine progress after Belgian GP win

Sebastian Vettel has heaped praise on his Ferrari Formula 1 team for the strides it has made in engine performance after he cruised to victory at the Belgian Grand Prix.

Vettel made a crucial pass on chief title rival and polesitter Lewis Hamilton along the Kemmel Straight on the opening lap before building a comfortable buffer he would never relinquish as he claimed his fifth win of the season and clawed back some much-needed points on the Briton.

It contrasted greatly to last year’s event in Belgium, where Hamilton was able to hold off Vettel’s attacks along the Kemmel Straight despite a powerful slipstream to triumph to victory in 2017. This year, however, Hamilton had no answer to Vettel and the German believes it can be put down to the Scuderia’s impressive power unit gains.

“I hope we have more power, that’s what we’ve been working on. If that is the case, then well done to our engine guys. They are making progress. Especially the last two years. It’s good news,” Vettel said.

“This year was pretty straightforward, we ran a bit less wing. Strong in sector one and three, sector two a bit slower. I wouldn’t disagree that in terms of power we’re faster than last year. It’s good to see we are making progress.”

Vettel was forced to go on the defensive following an early Safety Car period for a huge start crash involving McLaren’s Fernando Alonso. Despite appearing to be caught napping by Hamilton at the restart, Vettel was able to pull a big enough margin over the Mercedes driver before Eau Rouge.

“It was one of my worst restarts initially to surprise Lewis, he was sharp. I knew I had nothing to fear because the Safety Car line, where the restarts, was not braking for Turn 18,” he explained.

“When I realised the initial bit, it was not great, also caught some wheelspin I didn’t want, I didn’t want to slow down again to surprise him again for second chance as I don’t think it’s fair.

“Then focused on the last corner, that worked really well. Turn 1 – we had some tailwind the whole race so was making sure I knew where the wind was going. Again, I got it right, had a great exit.

“Once I was told the gap, which was about 0.9s out of exit of T1. I knew I should be safe,” he added. “I looked in the mirror, tried to see him. I was happy when I went into Turn 5 leading.

“After that it was quite intense the first stint, think we managed that well. I tried to break gap which worked well and then control the pace. He tried to push to close gap in first stint but couldn’t really. In the second stint, the race settled a bit more so we could control it a bit more.”