Ferrari driver now trails Lewis Hamilton by 49 points in standings
Sunday 20 September 2015 19:16, UK
Sebastian Vettel believes he has rejoined the word championship battle with Lewis Hamilton and Nico Rosberg after his emphatic victory in Singapore.
While Mercedes suffered a mysterious slump in performance, a faultless Vettel enjoyed the best weekend of his nascent Ferrari career at the Marina Bay circuit, leading the race from start to finish to close within 50 points of the summit with six races to go.
"Maybe we can make the impossible possible," said the jubilant Ferrari driver. "We have a small chance and will go for it."
Despite two separate deployments of the Safety Car, Vettel appeared to have the race under control throughout as he secured his third victory of the campaign ahead of the Red Bull team he left at the end of 2014.
"The first stint was fairly simple; You drive a bit into the unknown a little bit so I tried to pull a gap. I was surprised by the opening laps to full five seconds [ahead] straight away, then eased off, but was probably was pushing a bit too hard in the beginning which allowed Daniel [Ricciardo] to be that two, three tenths quicker at the end [of the stint]," he explained.
"Obviously I had of margin left, but the Safety Car answered all the questions about the first stop - and the same for the second stop. So it was pretty straightforward when to stop.
"But I did pretty much the opposite on the second stint. I knew it was impossible for anyone, for Daniel, to go 40-odd laps on the prime tyre because it would just fall apart at the end. With 35, 36 laps to go I knew we were approaching the pit stop window, plus I knew that the Mercedes' were on prime tyres which obviously allows them to be on the option for the final stint, so I said with a couple of laps to go to the pitstop window 'okay, go for it and open the gap and put three, four more seconds in front of Daniel so we can react if they pit first'. It worked pretty well.
Courtesy of his 42nd triumph in F1, Vettel now stands third in the all-time list of F1 race victors ahead of Ayrton Senna and behind only Michael Schumacher and Alain Prost.
Asked if his latest victory ranked as one of his best wins, Vettel replied: "It must be. It was pretty intense. We had a bit of a breather with the safety cars, but we had a lot of pressure from behind."
Although their introduction of new engines at the Italian GP is not believed to have been an integral factor behind their crushing defeat of Mercedes this weekend, they are believed to have significantly narrowed the Silver Arrows' power advantage.
That could be critical next week in Japan when horsepower is expected to be pivotal - and Mercedes will be under pressure to prove that their Singapore slump was a one-off.
"Definitely championship-wise there is still plenty of time out there and plenty of points for things to go wrong for Mercedes," said Sky Sports F1 pundit Damon Hill. "We will have to see at Suzuka if this is a one-off blip or a trend that is continuing."
One sour note for Ferrari on a day jubilation as the revitalised Scuderia hit new team principal Maurizio Arrivabene's 2015 target of three race victories came during their celebrations in the immediate aftermath of the race when 'some members' of the team were found to have 'behaved in an inappropriate manner' towards security staff in parc ferme.
After being called to the stewards to explain the incident, Arrivabene will write an 'unconditional apology to those who were affected and to give an assurance that they will not be a recurrence'.
Don't miss the F1 Midweek Report on Wednesday night at 8.30pm when John Watson and Maurice Hamilton join Anna Woolhouse to discuss the Singapore GP
