Aston Martin remains confident that Vettel will rediscover past form – the motorsport week

Aston Martin team boss Otmar Szafnauer says it is far too early to judge Sebastian Vettel’s performance in just one race and remains confident that the four-time Formula 1 world champion will rediscover his form.

Vettel’s debut race weekend with Aston Martin was tough after the German couldn’t escape the first quarter. His laps were disrupted by yellow flags and a penalty kick put him at the top of the grid for the start of the race.

Although he conquered a few positions and ran into the top ten, he ended up in a collision with Esteban Ocon in 15th place, five places below his teammate Lance Stroll.

Szafnauer defended Vettel’s race and insisted that after a difficult pre-season test in which he could run very little due to various problems, he was not yet ready for the AMR21.

“The car he drives now is fundamentally different from what he has driven before, from the characteristics of the car, the drive train and many other things,” explained Szafnauer.

“He was just really happy with the car, got it under control in qualifying and made changes to the setup [but then] He had the yellow flags.

“He didn’t do a lot of laps in the winter, we only had three days and he had to share those days with Lance and he all seemed to have problems.

“So I’m still confident we’ll get him there.”

Szafnauer had previously claimed Vettel would rediscover his form at Aston Martin, but after a weekend of five penalty points and a ten-second time penalty, some have wondered if that will ever be the case.

Szafnauer says it is way too early to make such a judgment after a race, and while it was a bad race, there have been some positive results.

“I think it’s very, very early to say that. We only have one data point, one race, yes it wasn’t the best race but if you look at the positive results it had to start last and ran in the top ten for a while.

“I had to leave the debriefing [early] So I don’t know what his feedback was, but when I was watching from the pit wall and looking at his lap times, his lap times weren’t that dissimilar to Lance’s, who has been here for a while and knows the car well and was finished in the end in a relatively decent position and was quite competitive on media and softs at times, as was Seb. So it’s way too early to say that. “