Sebastian Vettel attempts to move on from his controversial Malaysian GP victory

Sebastian Vettel has admitted he put himself "above the team" in disobeying orders from the Red Bull pitwall to win the Malaysian GP as the World Champion made his first public attempt to move on from the controversy.

While it was by far the most controversial of his 27th career victories to date, Vettel's Sepang success nonetheless meant he established an early lead in the Drivers' Championship after the opening two rounds of the season. Looking ahead to the challenge presented by this weekend's Shanghai event, the World Champion admitted Red Bull, like all the teams, were still on a voyage of discovery with the 2013-spec Pirellis even if they made progress on understanding them in Malaysia. "Obviously we learned quite a bit from the first two races. China will be different again, different circuit, different climate," the 25-year-old added. "So I think we're still in the learning process. Obviously the first two races helped a lot and I think it was very obvious to see that working with the tyres and trying to make the tyres last is crucial. It determines your strategy and therefore determines your race and the result. "I think we've still got a lot to learn but we made some improvements and we tweaked the car a little bit to help that. But on the other hand we'll still have to come here, come to China, set the car up on Friday, see where we are, see how long the tyres last and go from there."