Sebastian Vettel insists luck will play no role in whoever wins an unpredictable Formula One title race.
Defending champion admits to tyre struggles
Sebastian Vettel insists luck will play no role in whoever wins one of the most unpredictable Formula One title races in the sport's history.
For only the second time in the 62 years of F1, this season has so far resulted in five different drivers and five different constructors winning the first five races.
Even Red Bull owner Dietrich Mateschitz feels the campaign has become "a lottery" due to the lack of understanding with regard to the new breed of Pirelli tyres.
Reigning champion Vettel, like many around him, does not dispute the point, but feels this year's title winner will still prove to be the best driver-car combination.
Ahead of this weekend's Monaco Grand Prix, Vettel said: "There's a long way to go, but at the moment it's difficult for us to understand why we're sometimes quick, sometimes slow.
"It's probably harder for people on the outside to understand why their favourite driver wins one race and then at the next race is in the midfield or nowhere.
Funny
"It's difficult to know what to expect, but it's funny because no matter what you do people always find a reason to complain.
"It's hard to please everyone as we know. It doesn't work.
"I admit the tyres are extremely difficult to understand. Usually we don't have this problem, but it's not only us. Others have the same problems and are struggling a bit at the moment.
"Overall, if you look at the first five races, the drivers and teams at the front deserve to be there.
"We've had five different teams, five different drivers winning, but over 20 races it will not be right to say the winner of this year's championship will be lucky."
After returning to the top of the podium in Bahrain last month, Vettel's hopes of building on such a victory in Barcelona 12 days ago never got off the ground.
Instead, the 24-year-old German could do no better than fifth behind a shock winner in Williams' Pastor Maldonado.
Unable to put his finger on the about-turn, Vettel added: "Going into Barcelona we were hoping for a similar performance and result as in Bahrain, but we were not that competitive.
"We've since spent the time trying to understand why that was. We have some ideas, so we will see what we can do for here.
"But it's difficult to say what went wrong. It's not as if we have a clear answer.
"I was pretty happy in practice Friday and Saturday morning, but come qualifying we weren't able to make the step the majority of the grid made in terms of pace.
"The gap to the front then was too big, and it was the same on Sunday, so our maximum was fifth.
"It's not as if we could have argued with the first four places in that race."
