Sebastian Vettel says he had only one choice in Abu Dhabi, and that was to go on full attack mode after being forced to start from the pitlane.
The Red Bull driver managed to climb to 13th before an incident involving Nico Rosberg and Narain Karthikeyan brought out the safety car. Good news for Vettel as the SC period closed up the cars, however an incident involving the German, Daniel Ricciardo and a DRS board meant he had to start all over.
“After the first couple of laps that target [a podium] was drifting a little bit away and I had a messy start to the race and it was quite difficult from the back to get through the cars as quick as I did,” he explained.
“I wanted to get through the cars as quickly as I could and I damaged my front wing. Then under the safety car I had a bit of a big mistake with Daniel [Ricciardo], who was stopping his car on the straights, which surprised me. If it had been 50 metres earlier or later I wouldn’t have damaged my front wing further, but after that I said to myself ‘Either I go full attack or nothing, so that’s what I did’.”
Vettel managed to climb to fourth before a final pass on Jenson Button claimed him a podium finish which he said was the maximum.
“Yesterday was a surprise for us and I think had we started from third it would have been a different race,” he added. “[Starting from the pits] was obviously a chance to f*** it up and we didn’t do that. So we can be very proud today, we got the maximum and we lost only a very little bit.
“We’ve still got the momentum and the car is bloody quick so I’m looking forward to the next two races. We are definitely believing in it and that’s the target.”
