No change of plan despite deficit to Hamilton – Vettel

Sebastian Vettel insists there is no need for Ferrari to change its approach in the 2018 Formula 1 title race, despite losing further ground to championship leader Lewis Hamilton.

Hamilton extended his advantage at the top of the drivers’ standings to 40 points with six races to go after securing his seventh victory of the season with a surprise win in Singapore, while Vettel could only manage third behind Red Bull’s Max Verstappen. 

Despite appearing to boast the best overall package in 2018, a number of costly errors including crashing out of the lead in Germany and clashing with Hamilton on the opening lap in Italy have hampered Vettel’s hopes of sealing a fifth title.

“I think it's very simple from where we are,” Vettel said. “We are some points behind and we need to catch up to make sure we stay there.

“That's our target and the best way to do that is to finish ahead, and ideally ahead of everybody.

“So the plan doesn't really change. Obviously at this point we try to give it everything we have and I still believe that we have the chance.

“I think we have a fair chance,” he added. “We had races in the past that we should've won, we didn't. And we had others that we won, we shouldn't have.

“You never know what happens but anything is possible. I'm not aiming to win all six races. First of all, I'm aiming to win here, then once that's done we go to the next one and we go to the next one.

“I don't think there's much point looking five, six races ahead. I think you're much better off staying in the moment at what lies in front of you.”

Ferrari heads to Sochi – a circuit at which it secured its first front-row lockout since 2008 last year - in need of a response after back-to-back defeats at the hands of Mercedes have resulted in the Scuderia trailing the German manufacturer by 37 points in the constructors’ championship.

Vettel stressed that while Ferrari heads into this year’s Russian Grand Prix with different expectations compared to 2017, he is not taking anything for granted.

“I think last year probably was a surprise to see that we were so competitive here, this year we sort of expect to be competitive here,” he explained.

“Having said that, I think you need to take into account the last couple of races, where we struggled to have maybe the race pace and put it together in the race for different reasons.

“I think we need to not get distracted by the results but focus on the job that we have to do and tackle every session on its own and then see where we end up.”