Vettel: “Nonsense” to be talking about F1 title after two races

Sebastian Vettel has brushed aside talk of him being the early favourite to claim the 2018 Formula 1 world championship as “nonsense” after just two races.

The German heads into this weekend’s Chinese Grand Prix with a 17-point buffer over rival Lewis Hamilton in the drivers’ standings, having made the perfect start to the new season with victories in Melbourne and Bahrain. 

But Vettel, who led the 2017 championship until last year’s Italian Grand Prix, is keen to play down talk of him becoming an early favourite in the title race and insists he is not getting carried away with such thoughts so early into the campaign. 

“I think we have so many races nowadays that it’s as long, long way,” Vettel said. “I think it’s important if you want to fight for the championship to score a lot of points every race. The more, the better, but at this point it’s nonsense to be even thinking of where you might be. 

“Obviously there’s a lot of work ahead of us. The train is leaving. Everybody is putting on new parts and improving their cars, so we need to make sure we’re on that train amongst those teams that will be strong also at the end of the season. That, I think, will be key to fight for the championship.”

Mercedes was left to rue a costly timing error under the Virtual Safety Car in Australia and admitted it missed a 90 percent window of opportunity to claim victory in Bahrain, as Vettel became the first driver to begin a season with back-to-back wins for the Scuderia since Michael Schumacher’s final title-winning campaign in 2004. 

When asked if he felt Ferrari has been smarter with its strategy compared to Mercedes, Vettel replied: “I don’t think it has anything to do with being smart. I think we know our numbers, and I think — not to go in detail too much and get lost. I think some of the systems we have can be a bit tricky. I think every team is aware of that. 

“Then I think for Bahrain obviously we had a different plan going into the race, but we wanted to win, so we had to change it, and it worked out. I think in the position that we were we, in a way, had nothing to lose — falling back to third was the worst possible result — so we took the risk and it paid off.

“I don’t think here was anything Mercedes could’ve done massively different. In the end we did everything we could, we did everything right, and that was important.”

And Vettel has is wary of a Mercedes resurgence in Shanghai - a venue the reigning world champions have dominated every year since the V6 turbo era began in 2014. 

“The first two races have been quite different, so it’s not that straightforward to predict the third one. I think overall if you take into account all the testing we did, then Mercedes is still the favourite going in [to China].

“Certainly we’ll try to have a different outcome than that. I think if we do our homework, if we get the car balance right and we get everything together, then it should be a good weekend - I don’t see why not.”