Low battery problems hampered final Q3 run – Sebastian Vettel

Sebastian Vettel has claimed his battery was running low on his final Q3 run which saw him unable to prevent title-rival Lewis Hamilton from taking pole position for the Belgian Grand Prix.

In the final part of qualifying rain came down heavily as the light went green with Vettel and the rest of the top ten having to duck back in and put on the intermediate tyres after having been fuelled up for the full 12 minutes of the session.

"It was weird, not rain, not dry, something in-between," said the four-time world champion.

"I knew all the laps don’t matter but the last one, I was pushing, don’t know if you have a red flag, someone loses it in these conditions, stayed on track, but never closed the lap but the last one, was a bit chaotic and not great from a management point of view, you don’t know how much it’s going to dry up, if there’s more coming.

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"We ran out of battery on the last lap for nearly the whole lap and it was costly, wasn’t a nice ending for a great qualifying up to that point.

"We started second which puts us in a great place, we have a car to fight, a car to overtake.

The German also felt it was hugely difficult to manage the inclement conditions, describing it as 'scrappy', especially after the sharp shower at the start and dealing with a rapidly drying track at the end of the session.

He added: "I guess everybody had in these conditions, swapping tyres, there was a little bit of miscommunication of where to start in the pit lane but at the end that didn’t matter. But it was just not as calm as it could’ve been.

"Yeah, after that, well I mean looking back it’s always very easy in these sessions but as I said the lap that mattered was the last one before was nearly irrelevant other than keeping your tyres warm.

"But that you don’t know, you don’t know whether the rain increases again, the laps I had before I couldn’t close also due to traffic, so I knew that if I close them then the next lap will be compromised then the next lap will be drier, so what do you do?

"As I said it didn’t feel like I got everything out for various reasons, therefore it was a very scrappy session. In the end, if it’s scrappy like that, you saw also the others not putting enough fuel for the end, so it can be a lot worse."