Sebastian Vettel has admitted he was “too close” to race leader Lewis Hamilton at the Belgian Grand Prix restart, missing out on a chance to take the lead.
The Ferrari driver tried to challenge for first place at the race start, but did not have enough straightline speed to make a move on the back straight.
He kept Hamilton in his sights and while the gap increased and decreased with each lap, he was unable to get close enough to overtake.
The safety car brought Vettel back into the fight and he moved onto the ultra-soft tyres for the restart, while Hamilton changed to softs at his second pitstop.
But Vettel got too close to Hamilton and had to back out, which gave the Mercedes driver a chance to eke out a small gap.
“It was good fun, really intense as every lap I was waiting for Lewis to do a mistake and he didn’t,” Vettel said afterwards.
“He was probably waiting for me to make a mistake and I didn’t. I am not entirely happy [about the restart], I was fearing that I was not close enough but I was too close.
“So, at the top of the hill, I had to get out, I had nowhere to go. We had very good pace, if you compare this track with Silverstone. So, good steps forward and I’m looking forward to our home race.”
Commenting further on the restart, he added: “It was a tricky one, I knew I had the advantage with the softer compound.
“If I had to do it again, maybe I would do it a bit differently. I had too good a restart, it was very close. Even though I had momentum on him, I was still a long way back. We are missing a bit, there [straightline speed].”
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