After battling for victory with Lewis Hamilton for much of the Singapore Grand Prix, Sebastian Vettel was forced to settle for fourth after a drive-through penalty following his second pit stop caught the Red Bull Racing star by surprise.
“That's all we could do in the end, fourth place,” said Vettel. “Obviously, I had a chance today to get at least a podium. I think, especially in the second stint we were quite quick, able to push and to put some pressure on Lewis.
“I knew I would pit earlier, so there was no chance to get him at the pitstop, so I wasn’t in a rush really and then I was very surprised when I got the call ‘drive-through for speeding in the pitlane’,” he added.
“As I said I wasn't in a rush and therefore I can’t really explain why I got caught. We have to check if it’s maybe an electronic issue, but it was working before and afterwards so it’s difficult to say.
“For sure disappointment because the car was quick. I was a bit unlucky with the start and then got traffic in both first and second stint. After that, obviously with the drive through, I think it was the best that we could do.”
Fourth though was a good result for Vettel as mechanical problems late in the race almost robbed the German of more points.
“The car was falling apart,” he said. “It’s a very tough race for the car, with a lot of bumps. At some point my mirror started to vibrate and then shake more and more up to the point where it fell off completely, so after that I felt that the car wasn’t exactly the same.”
To make matters worse, Vettel then ran wide over kerbing and damaged the diffuser. “Nowadays every single bit of downforce is useful and, on top of that, towards the end we had a problem with the diffuser. I think I went a bit wide, exit of Turn 5, hit the kerb and damaged the strakes.”
Vettel’s fourth place allowed him to claw a single point out of Jenson Button’s massive title lead with just three rounds left. Despite the 25-point gap to Button the Red Bull driver insisted he will keep fighting until the end.
“We will do the same as this race,” he said. “We try to attack the maximum, try to win, I think we were quite close today and definitely had a chance. Would have been difficult of course to pass Lewis because of the straights, with the KERS, it’s not really exciting when you are behind. But we keep pushing and trying to win races.”
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