Sebastian Vettel concedes that maybe he pushed a bit too hard in F1 Australian GP-ending crash, as Mike Krack reflects on troubled time.
It has been a tough season for Vettel. He was struck down by COVID-19 for the opening two Grands Prix of 2022, as he eventually made his season debut in Australia and it proved to be one nightmare after another.
The FP1 session saw him hardly get any running at all after his car lost power. He lost FP2 owing to this. He was also got fined $5000 for riding a scooter on the track back to the pit area post the first session. He then suffered a crash in FP3 as well which almost led him to miss qualifying but for his teammate’s crash which allowed him to set one timed lap.
In the race itself he suffered a crash and retired in a rather strange incident. “It was maybe too much of a handful for me, so I think I was trying to push a bit too hard and obviously lost the car,” said Vettel to media. “In race conditions it was obviously the first time and there was a lot of stuff I picked up in the first couple of laps but obviously a bit too short that race.
“We know the car is difficult and maybe I was wanting a little bit too much too soon. We have a lot of things we want to improve but we don’t have the solutions yet. All in all, I think we tried to do what we could and up to that point I think it was looking okay, obviously we were at the back.
“I know that our pace was not great, I don’t what could have happened after (the crash). Now we have a lot of parts that are damaged but I am sure we will have a better weekend next time out,” summed Vettel.
It has been a tough start not only for the German but the whole of Aston Martin team as they have been suffering from multiple issues with their car. They have another 20 races to sort out and build on. It is a tough start for new team boss Mike Krack. “We had a very difficult weekend because we had a lot of car damage,” he said.
“It started already on Friday when we had a small problem on the power unit, which we had to change, so we didn’t get so much time. Then obviously the on-track incidents were more visible to everybody, and that was a lot of work. I think when we came here, we thought we would have been a little better than we had been before, but obviously… we had much more disruption than you can afford at the end of the day.”
With Vettel out, attention turned to Lance Stroll, he finished 12th, 10 seconds behind the last points scorer Alex Albon. There at the end but end result was zero points which came with more penalty points as he now has eight against his name.
“I think at the end of the race we were still in a position where you hope we could score but eventually it did not happen,” continued Krack. “Overall, quite a disappointing weekend, I have to say, so now we need to really collect all the bits that we have… we are starting to run low on spares, so it’s something we need to address.”
Here’s Sebastian Vettel in FP1: https://www.formula1.com/en/latest/video.2022-australian-gp-fp1-vettel-turns-firefighter-after-engine-failure.1729512150279230246.html
Here’s Sebastian Vettel in FP3 crash: https://www.formula1.com/en/latest/video.2022-australian-gp-fp3-vettel-crashes-into-barrier.1729600174717589906.html
Here’s Sebastian Vettel crashing in race: https://www.formula1.com/en/latest/video.2022-australian-grand-prix-vettel-crashes-out-at-melbourne-grand-prix-circuit.1729699739175145395.html