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Sebastian Vettel has told F1 fans to not count him out of the Malaysian Grand Prix so soon. The German will start the Grand Prix from the back of the field after suffering from an engine issue at the start of Q1. It's the second race weekend in succession where the Ferrari driver's title bid has taken a huge blow.
Vettel watched on from the sidelines and witnessed his championship rival Lewis Hamilton claim his 70th career pole position. While the four-time world champion's chances of hitting into Hamilton's championship lead have taken a blow, Vettel says he shouldn't be considered out of a strong race result just yet.
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"Of course what happened is not what you want – especially on a day where you think that you’ve got it in you and in the car," Vettel told Formula1.com "Unfortunately we were not able to prove that. But the race is tomorrow so don’t count me out.
"Yes it was a difficult day but our guys are phenomenal in fixing problems. Changing the engine within two hours between FP3 and qualifying was almost a miracle. We thought that we would be late for qualifying but we went out on time. So what happened is a shame. The car is quick and even though we will have a lot of laps to do tomorrow we should get back."
Vettel shed light on his situation, saying that he doesn't believe in luck, and he would prefer the issue arose in qualifying rather than the race: "I don’t believe in luck. Obviously there is a reason why this issue happened so we need to understand and make sure it doesn’t happen again. Fortunately the issue happened today so we have saved a lot of tyres and can chose our strategy – so it is not all bad."
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Would love to see him come through and get on the podium