11/04/2019
NEWS STORY
This is the time Sebastian Vettel can really show what he's made of, to either silence his critics or prove them correct.
Following another mistake in Bahrain, and the meteoric rise of his young teammate, having 'fallen off the bike', now is the time for four-time world champion Vettel to get back on and prove himself.
Speaking to reporters in China, the German admits that Bahrain was not his finest hour, and that he is still not happy with the SF90.
"I wasn't happy with my performance," he said of the previous race, "not happy with the feeling yet with the car, the feeling that I had prior to the season in testing.
"I know I can do better," he continued, "and I know we have lots of races to show and prove that.
"It's normal that you never get the car that you want so you always have to adapt," he added. "Very rarely you get races where the car is absolutely fine and you have nothing to complain about.
"I think the test was very helpful and useful to get some laps in the car and I think we learnt some things about the car, its behaviour, that maybe we couldn't in Barcelona because we were looking at other things.
"The behaviour in Barcelona was very strong so hopefully I have a better feeling in the car this weekend."
Asked about his teammate's decision to ignore team orders and pass him, Vettel said: "I'm not surprised.
"It is quite clear that he was quite a lot faster at that point," he added. "I could have passed him back on the next straight but I judged it that it's going to lose me more time and him more time.
"It didn't go my way that Sunday so at that point it wasn't about holding Charles' Sunday back."
While many believe that Bahrain was a mere blip, and that Ferrari will be the pace-setters this weekend, Vettel warned against complacency.
"We learnt our lessons from Australia and should be in a better place here," he said. "The error on Charles' car in terms of reliability is understood and we should also be in a better place so looking forward to a good weekend hopefully.
"We need to get everything right," he warned. "It is extremely tight at the top, I expect Red Bull to be closer here than they were in Bahrain. I think it will be very close so we need the speed wherever we can find it."
Check out our Thursday gallery from Shanghai, here.