MARINA BAY, Singapore — Sebastian Vettel says he is his own worst enemy in this year’s title battle after a series of mistakes have left him 30 points adrift of Lewis Hamilton in the championship standings.
Vettel has dropped somewhere in the region of 60 points thanks to a series of mistakes and collisions at races in Azerbaijan, France, Germany and Italy this year. This weekend’s race in Singapore takes place at the scene of one of the defining moment moments of last year’s title battle in which Vettel crashed out at the first corner and lost crucial points to Hamilton.
The evidence of the last few races suggests Ferrari has a faster car than Mercedes this year and Vettel believes the destiny of the championship is still in his hands.
« I think it is pretty straightforward for me, » he said on Thursday in Singapore. « I think the biggest enemy is me.
« I think we have a great car, I have something to play with and we have all the chances to do it in our way. Obviously he [Hamilton] is the leader at the moment, he’s the one ahead and he is the one to beat, but I think we have all the chances and how much we could be better by now and so on is a different question.
« We still have a very good chance, and as I said, we will be our first enemy and not him as a person or them [Mercedes] as a team. I think we need to look after ourselves and if we do that we have a good chance to do well and win races and things look good. »
Vettel said his mistake in Germany, in which he crashed out of the lead of the race when it started to rain, was the hardest error to put behind him.
« I think it is normal that you do a lot of races and some you feel you should have done better for different reasons. I think there were also other races where we shouldn’t have done so well and we did, but for sure the worst one was Germany.
« I think most important thing is that I know what happened and I can explain it and then everyone is free to have their own views on what happened. I would have loved to win in Germany, for sure, but I’m not too bothered and I’m generally looking forward and not focusing on what we all could have done differently to avoid what happened. »
http://www.espn.com/f1/story/_/id/24661437/sebastian-vettel-my-biggest-enemy-me
