Sebastian Vettel admits that progress will be difficult in Russian GP

Sebastian Vettel was downbeat after qualifying for the Russian GP, with the World Champion doubtful he can make much progress in Sunday’s race.

Red Bull have been struggling this weekend and Vettel dropped out in Q2, although he’ll move up a place to tenth on the grid after Kevin Magnussen picked up a gearbox penalty.

Team-mate Daniel Ricciardo will line up sixth and while Vettel said his car “felt okay”, he admitted he’d been unable to make up for its lack of top speed through the corners.

“I think we knew it would be difficult for us here in general, with the amount of straights. But equally there’s a lot of corners; especially sector two and sector three,” said Vettel, whose Red Bull departure at the end of 2014 was announced last weekend.

“Yesterday was already quite difficult. I think we made a big step forward this morning but I wasn’t able to take that into qualifying.”

Vettel explained that he was “generally not able to get the best out of the car through the corners; as we do struggle down the straights, [it’s] not the best compromise around the lap”.

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Looking ahead to Sunday, Vettel also doubts that Red Bull can gain a strategic edge given the easy time of it tyres have been having on the 5.848km track.

The Sochi Autodrom also has the longest run of the season off the line – setting up the prospect of cars running wide at Turn 2 at the start - and Vettel admitted: “It doesn’t hurt if people in front of you get it wrong.

“But in terms of strategy it should be fairly straightforward. Tyres last very well; it should be a one-stop race, so it’s difficult to come up with a different strategy.

“Obviously we are outside the top ten, so we have the opportunity to do something different. But then again, as I said, it’s limited.

“Overtaking is tricky as the last two corners are fairly quick, so it’s difficult to be close.

“All in all, I think we qualified in P10 because that’s as quick as we can go.

He added: “It would be nice to finish on the podium tomorrow. But equally, if nothing special happens and we have consistent conditions, it will be very difficult to make a lot of progress.”

The long-lasting tyres were a feature of qualifying, with Ricciardo quipping: “In general, the trend has just been improving, improving all the way. Maybe it’ll be zero stops tomorrow.”

But with Lewis Hamilton on pole and Ricciardo now 73 points behind the World Championship leader, the Australian admitted his own title chances – always a long shot – are all-but over.

A total of 125 points are still up for grabs but he admitted: “If Hamilton wins tomorrow and I stay in seventh – I don’t know mathematically if it is – but there’s probably not much more we can get out of it.

“Even so, it doesn’t stop us trying to do our best at every race. But it’s looking like it’s becoming a bit tricky.”

The 2014 Russian GP is live on Sky Sports F1 this weekend. Extensive coverage of Race Day from Sochi begins at 10:30am on Sunday with lights out at 12pm.