Sebastian Vettel admits that Red Bull are playing catch-up to McLaren ahead of this weekend's Malaysian Grand Prix in Sepang.
Red Bull driver admits that Red Bull need to find more pace
Sebastian Vettel admits that Red Bull are playing catch-up to McLaren ahead of this weekend's Malaysian Grand Prix in Sepang.
McLaren locked out the front row at the first qualifying session of the season in Australia before Jenson Button went on to claim an impressive win for the Woking outfit in the race.
Despite Webber qualifying alongside team-mate Mark Webber on the third row, the defending World Champion managed to secure a second place finish.
With Webber also finishing on the tail of McLaren's Lewis Hamilton the signs were encouraging for Red Bull at the end of the weekend, but Vettel says they are still behind the ultimate pace.
"I think at the moment they (McLaren) have the upper hand. They showed it here (Australia). But, whether they still have it next week remains to be seen," Vettel said.
Strong
"Surely they look very strong, they had an excellent winter. Pre-season testing was very good for them and they seem to be in very good shape, whereas there are a lot of things we need to do to catch up. Hopefully we will be able to do that and beat them."
Vettel made a spectacular move around the outside of Mercedes' Nico Rosberg in the early stages and was satisfied with the pace of the RB8 thereafter.
The defending World Champion, though, is happy that he managed to get away so quickly and feels Red Bull learned quite a lot about the RB8.
"I think we had a very good start and I was able to find a rhythm quickly and get past a couple of people, especially the Mercedes because to get them is usually quite tricky," he added.
"They are usually quite quick on the straights and we saw that last year a couple of times that many people got frustrated behind them, so that was crucial.
"The pace was pretty good and I was happy with the car. It was an important race for us to learn about the car and the potential was there. Surely Jenson deserved to win, so congratulations to him and the McLarens, but to finish ahead of Lewis was great."
