F1: Vettel Has To Settle For Fourth In Hungary

Formula 1

F1: Vettel Has To Settle For Fourth In Hungary

Red Bull driver accepts results on Hungaroring circuit...

Adam Cooper | http://www.speedtv.com | Posted July 29, 2012 Budapest (HUN)

Sebastian Vettel of Germany and Red Bull Racing drives during the Hungarian Formula One Grand Prix at the Hungaroring on July 29, 2012 in Budapest, Hungary. (Photo: Getty Images)

Sebastian Vettel kept his championship challenge on track with a sold fourth place in Hungary, but the German felt he had the speed to do a lot better.

Having started third Vettel was passed by Jenson Button at the first corner, and having lost time behind the McLaren was also jumped at the second pit stops by Kimi Raikkonen.

Later he made an extra pit stop to finish the race on fresh tires, having got far enough ahead of Fernando Alonso to ensure that he would hold onto fourth even with a stop.

“I think it was probably not the result we could have had today,” said Vettel. “Our speed was a little bit better than that. Jenson was quite slow, and we lost quite a lot. But obviously you can’t just pit and come out in clean air, there’s traffic. Other people weren’t that much slower either.

“We thought that we’d try something. Obviously it could have been the case that their tires fall ‘off the cliff’, which wasn’t the case. So we’ll try next time.

“I think a two-stop would not have changed anything, so it was just following Romain around. Trying something different was I think the right thing. It was marginal coming out ahead of Fernando, but it was good. It could have been a different story, their tires could have fallen off.

“It didn’t happen this time. We did everything we could from a strategy point of view, which lost a little bit too much in the first corner and particularly to Jenson, who was very slow, and we lost too much time to the guys ahead.”

Vettel insisted that he wasn’t too disappointed.

“I’m not frustrated, it was not a boring afternoon for me. I was fighting as much as I could, I was pushing hard. That’s what I’m here for. We finished fourth, we didn’t win. If I win then I’m happy. If you’re fourth – today I have to accept it, but you’re not as happy as if you win.

“I finished ahead of Fernando, but not a lot. Race pace was quite good so it’s up to us to have better starts in the future. And probably one or two better steps in qualifying, and then it’s a different race.”

Adam Cooper notched up his 27th season as a racing journalist in 2011. He has written about F1 for SPEED.com since 2005. Follow him on Twitter.