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Formula One
F1: Home Support Good For Me Says Vettel
Sebastian Vettel says he feels no extra pressure racing in his native Germany...
Adam Cooper  | http://www.speedtv.com  |  Posted July 21, 2011   Nurburg (DEU)
Sebastian Vettel holds court in Germany Thursday. (Photo: LAT Photographic)
Sebastian Vettel says that racing in Germany as World Champion for the first time doesn’t feel any different from previous years.

He insists that the pressure of a home crowd is a positive rather than anything else.

“Well, I mean, generally after winning the championship last year coming here it is not that different to two years ago, or last year in Hockenheim,” he said Thursday. “It is always great, first of all, to have the opportunity to race in your home country, in front of your home crowd.

“We are six [German] drivers now, so we all share that feeling this weekend, and I am looking forward to it. Many times people talk about extra pressure or things that could slow you down, but to be honest I think it is more positive than anything else to have people in the grandstands, people outside the paddock and inside the paddock as well support you and trying to push you forward to allow you to find maybe this extra tenth or two around the lap.”

Vettel said things should be a lot more clear cut this weekend now that the diffuser rules have been clarified.

“Last weekend, unfortunately, we were discussing or we were talking more about rules and rule changes rather than the racing," he said. "But from here it should be clear right from the start, so there is not a lot to talk about in that regard, and we focus on racing again. I think it has been fairly tight all year, especially ... the last three races with three different teams winning, so for here it is difficult to say who will be strongest.

“We are here to find out, but I think we have a good chance. We seem to like the track. We had a very good race two years ago, very, very good race pace so we will see. Since then things have changed. I think we have learned a lot. At this stage everything looks fine. We are as confident as we can be and I, in particular, am looking forward to the race on Sunday.”

Vettel also deflected an inquiry about the team orders that RBR employed at Silverstone.

“I don’t think there was anything for us to gain as a team in the last race," he said. "Fernando (Alonso) was quite far away and whoever was fourth, Felipe (Massa) or Lewis (Hamilton), they were battling, they were quite far away from us, so as a team there was nothing to gain.

“Surely, as Mark (Webber, teammate) said: He wanted to race, he wanted to improve that one position. I didn’t want to let him by, I tried to defend.

“It depends, as I said, on the situation. On the one hand you want to race for yourself and on the other hand you try the best for the team. To be honest, I don’t think there’s much we have to talk through and go through again.

“On Sunday, obviously for that to happen, first of all we have to have a lot of good laps to then be in a position to fight against each other for the victory, so I think that stage is quite far away, so I would rather start tomorrow morning with free practice one and go from there.”

Adam Cooper notched up his 26th season as a racing journalist in 2010. He has written about F1 for SPEED.com since 2005. Follow him on Twitter.
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