Vettel was third fastest in Saturday’s FP3 in the wet and looked poised to achieve a strong result in qualifying.
However, the four-time world champion struggled early on in the water in Q1, complaining over the radio that the car looked completely different.
He was left in 17th position, just ahead of his teammate Lance Stroll, who had a similar ordeal.
Immediately after the session, Sebastian Vettel was unable to pinpoint what went wrong.
“We don’t know yet,” he said when asked by Motorsport.com if it was a tire preparation issue. “But there must be something, obviously, it was very different.”
“It’s disappointing because I think we could have had a really good result in these conditions, even better than in the dry. So I don’t know, we have to see. It’s too early to say anything.”
“But considering how bad the car was, I wasn’t surprised that we were so slow, but obviously it leaves a sour feeling.”
Vettel expressed his anger on the radio after crossing the finish line and being told by his engineer that he had been eliminated.
“I’ve already calmed down,” he told the media. “Because what’s the point of being angry now? It’s one of those days where in a wet session, with a car like the one you want, you can make a difference. And I don’t know what went wrong. So we’ve lost that chance”.
“First of all, we have to try to understand what happened, if there is real damage or if we did something wrong.”
Krack later said that tire pressure was the likely cause of the problems, with the team setting them higher in the pits and then being surprised when the track dried out faster than expected.
“We are investigating,” the Aston Martin director said. “We had no grip. Both drivers went out and we didn’t have enough grip. So we went into the pits, made an adjustment and put on another set of tyres. And we had a similar problem. So we think it’s related to tire pressure.” .
“We had done quite a bit in the morning, and the pressures weren’t building very well. So we had to do a lot of laps to build up the pressure.”
“And we thought the conditions were pretty similar in qualifying, but there were 20 cars on the track in the afternoon and that probably dried up the track, or made the track faster, much, much faster than we had anticipated.
Krack admitted that the team still doesn’t know the rain Pirelli well for 2022.
“To be honest, we ourselves were the ones who did the first test in Barcelona,” he recalled. “And then running on these tires in Monaco, for example, is not the same as doing it here. So that was one of the reasons why we ran a lot in FP3, even though you risk your cars with the walls.”
“But we don’t have a lot of experience with the tyres, especially with the cold, because in Monaco it was also much hotter. So we had taken the opportunity of FP3 to try to learn as much as possible.”
“But maybe it was a little bit in the wrong direction.”
Despite starting 17th, Vettel believes he can still finish in the top 10.
“I still think we can move forward and maybe get a point,” Vettel said.
“So let’s see. It’s the same game as always, we’re probably faster than the cars in front of us, we’ll be glued to them at the start, and hopefully we can get a good start, then we’ll see with the strategy.”
“You’re not going to be able to do something completely unexpected and come out first. But we have to be vigilant.”
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Photo by: Zak Mauger/Motorsport Images
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Photo by: Zak Mauger/Motorsport Images
Photo by: Zak Mauger/Motorsport Images
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Photo by: Zak Mauger / Motorsport Images
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Photo by: JMD Jens Munser Designs
Photo by: JMD Jens Munser Designs
Photo by: JMD Jens Munser Designs
Photo by: JMD Jens Munser Designs
