Vettel: Current slump not the worst of my F1 career

Sebastian Vettel insists his current run of form is not the worst period of his Formula 1 career.

The Ferrari driver has endured a tough 12-month period littered by a number of high-profile errors, with the latest coming last time out at the Italian Grand Prix as Vettel spun all by himself while running in fourth place during the early stages of the race.

With teammate Charles Leclerc picking up back-to-back victories at Spa and Monza and recording Ferrari’s first wins of the 2019 campaign, Vettel has fallen behind the Monegasque in the championship standings for the first time this year. The German has endured a 22-race streak without a victory, stretching all the way back to last year’s Belgian Grand Prix.

“I don’t remember all my career to be honest, it’s obviously been quite a while that I’ve been around - but it’s certainly not the best one right now, but also it’s not the worse one either,” Vettel said.

“I still love racing and I look forward to a lot of races this year to hopefully get in a better position and finish the season in the way we want. Then prepare for next year.

“I don’t compare it, I take it as what it is and it’s obviously not great but ultimately it’s not a disaster,” he added. “I think in the race weekend the race is the peak and the highlight, one moment can change the whole race and in that case it did.

“Obviously I was the first one to admit the mistake after the race and was very clear. Unfortunately, these things are part of us and part of racing.

“It’s not the level that I want to perform but these things can happen to all of us every now and again.”

Asked whether he would put his recent mistakes down to mentality or technical issues, Vettel replied: “No I don’t think it’s mental. It’s not that I’m in the wrong place, I think I’m doing the right things so that’s why I think it’s crucial not to complicate things too much.

“Here and there I might not have the absolute trust in the car and the best feeling yet, but I think it’s improving, my understanding of the car, and then it’s a question of lining up the details.

“But I’m sure that things will click and start to fall into place, so we need to keep our heads down. There’s always things we can do better and that I can do better and work on, so we will see how the next races go.”

Ferrari has brought a new aerodynamic package to Singapore in a bid to improve its performance in high-downforce configurations, with a new front and rear wing, a new floor and diffuser among the updates. Vettel hopes the changes will help the team at a circuit it is not expecting to fare particularly well at.

“Obviously on paper we know what we expect, and hopefully we see the same on the track,” he explained.

“It will be nice if we see it more. As long as everything is working and we can feel inside the car that it is a step forward, and we can extract more performance, then that will be a success.

“We know that it will be difficult. It is a maximum downforce track and the last time we did a maximum downforce track was in Hungary and we were not competitive so let’s see.

“Any improvements will ultimately always work in the drivers’ favour but we will see. The last time we had maximum downforce on the car was Hungary, so hopefully it will be a clear step forward. If you trust the car around here then it’s crucial to extract.”