Ferrari’s Sebastian Vettel says he needs time off to re-group after a difficult 2018, adding that he knows what he needs to do to bounce back in 2019 F1 season.
It has been a year of ups and downs for Vettel in the fight against Mercedes and Lewis Hamilton. The German has been there and thereabouts all-season long, even ahead at times – only to lose out in the end by 88 points.
Not dwelling into the details, it is fair to say that Vettel hasn’t been consistent enough against Hamilton, who certainly showed more resilience with the right support from his team in all of 2018.
With the season coming to an end and time for reflection, Vettel admitted needing some time to himself so as to re-look at things which could have been done differently. The four-time champion adds he knows what needs to be done as well to fight back in 2019.
“I think, naturally, the year I’ve had, I don’t think I ever any problems raising my hand if I made a mistake,” he said. “I think, knowing as well, as a racing driver, how quickly things can go wrong, how quickly things could have gone differently this year.
“I think, I have to review a couple of things but there’s other things that I think went wrong and don’t need a lot of reviewing and not over-complicating things too much. I think I know what I need to do.
“Certainly, here and there, looking back I haven’t been at the top of my game. I look at myself first, I think I can be better than I was at times this year. Having said that though, I think we also had a lot of races where we got everything out of the car and the package and I felt that I did everything I could.
“I was happy with that. But that’s how it goes, that’s sometimes why you love racing and sometimes why you hate racing. For now I need a bit of time just to shut things down and then I think usually I don’t know, it’s a bit like skiing: maybe you learn something overnight before you go on the slopes again the next day.
“Obviously our night, it would help to hibernate, it would be stretching the night a lot longer than it is but I think we have a little bit of time to digest and analyse and I’ve always tried to improve things. I don’t think I need to change things upside down but certainly in there I can adjust and get stronger.”
The German admitted that usually he is pumped up to get back to racing based on the previous winters but this year he wants the gap to himself while spending time with family and fixing his bike before getting back to the grind.
