Sebastian Vettel believes his qualifying outing at Portimao was the most comfortable he has felt at Aston Martin since joining the team.
In his third race weekend with his new squad, Vettel advanced into Q3 for the first time since last year’s British Grand Prix, and is set to start Sunday’s race from 10th on the grid.
Team-mate Lance Stroll, who is equipped with upgrades that Vettel is yet to receive, failed to progress out of the opening Q1 session.
“Despite the difficult conditions, probably yes,” Vettel said when asked if it was the most comfortable he’s been so far this year.
“Things started to click a little bit more than they did previously which is good. But for sure today was a very difficult day.
“The car is all over the place, that’s [the same] for most other people. With the wind changing, you can’t see it, you can’t see there’s going to be a gust and you use it.
“If it hits you from behind, you lose the car. Tricky but overall better, I was a bit happier with my driving.”
Vettel added that he has no issue with Stroll taking on the upgrades first at the team, believing it to be a “logical” decision from Aston Martin.
“Obviously he felt a lot more comfortable straight away with the car compared to me, so it was logical,” Vettel commented.
“In the end, like I said, we have a big split between the cars in terms of qualifying position, just the other way around like the last races.
“Ideally, we [would like to] have them closer together to also work a bit more together in the race. We still have to want to improve.
“We’re still learning about the car. Let’s see, obviously it’s going to be a long season, but these couple of races now are very crucial to get on top of it, we’re still changing a lot of things one session to another to just explore the limits.”
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