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Sebastian Vettel has lamented missed opportunities this season, but only so far as losing out on minor points positions. In Turkey, his only regret of sorts was not taking a gamble he felt could have won him the race – a transformation in ‘misfortune’.
Vettel’s drive in Formula 1’s Turkish GP yielded a first podium and comfortably his best result of 2020. It was one of his most comprehensive performances, aided by being able to break out of the vicious circle that has trapped him most of the year.
He reiterated after the Istanbul race that “qualifying has been the Achilles’ heel and the races obviously have been largely defined by being stuck in the pack”. But even though he outqualified team-mate Charles Leclerc for the first time since July’s Hungarian Grand Prix, improved one-lap pace in Turkey was not the key to his breakthrough on race day, because he still only started 11th.
What made the difference was a great first lap only possible because of the conditions, in which Vettel showed exceptional judgement.
Vettel jumped several cars on the slipperier side of the grid with the launch alone, then avoided being suckered into the first corner behind the running-deep Mercedes of Valtteri Bottas: “I wasn’t one of the ones who tried everything into Turn 1.”
He was able to cut underneath as Daniel Ricciardo clipped Renault team-mate Esteban Ocon into a spin and Bottas lost it on the outside as well. A better run out of the corner then allowed Vettel to pass Ricciardo on the outside into Turn 2, and he overtook Hamilton when the Mercedes driver made a mistake at Turn 9 and had to go around the bollard on the run-off.
That first lap put Vettel in an unprecedented position this season and was a transformative track position to what he has faced in most of the races. It’s why afterwards, when asked by The Race if he felt the drive vindicated his previous theory that better Sunday performances were being disguised by poor track position, he did not take the easy way out.
“As much as I’ve earned the podium today in the race we were fast in these conditions here, I have also had a lack of pace in qualifying so far this year in dry conditions,” he said. “And therefore I place myself in a bad spot and then it’s a very different race that you have, you’re not in front of the pack, you’re in the middle or behind.
“That this year has been the key, it’s very close where we are and being two or three tenths down when it matters has a big impact.
“It’s something that truly I don’t like but I’m working on and I think it’s been a difficult year for many reasons and this is one of them.”
In a normal grand prix, opportunities like the ones Vettel grasped on the first lap of the Turkish GP simply don’t arise, unless there is a spectacular variable like a multi-car crash. As he put it: “In the wet, everything is a bit different and you can be lucky or unlucky, but you can make a difference more than in the dry.”
Once in position, Vettel still had to produce. He kept Max Verstappen at bay until pitting to switch early from wet tyres to intermediates, which was a setback of sorts. “It took a little bit too long for us to get into the groove,” said Vettel, who came under pressure from Hamilton, was passed by Verstappen who had run a longer first stint, and was overtaken by the other Red Bull of Alex Albon after Hamilton had made a small mistake and dropped back.
But he held Hamilton behind him until having to pit for a second set of intermediates, after which he was overtaken by a charging Leclerc who was a few laps into a new intermediate stint himself.
Vettel put that down to being too conservative when the tyres started to grain on the drying track, a phenomenon that drivers simply had to push through to get the inter to wear down to a pseudo-slick.
That looked to have cost Vettel, and he admitted that “all the time” he was pondering a gamble to switch to slicks. No other driver did and Vettel said he was “very keen” to be the one to try.
“I would have really liked to have put them on as I think that would have been a chance to win,” he said.
“Given that we were in a good position looking for good points, I can see that we wanted to hang on to this. Plus, we had rain forecast for the last lap.
“Maybe I should have dared to. The track was sort of dry and still damp in other places but it was stable and the tyres that we had on were all pretty worn down to nothing, pretty much like a slick and in that case a slick would be faster.
“But would, could, should. We didn’t dare to do it; we got a podium so not much we could have got more from that race.”
All’s well that ends well. Verstappen chewed his tyres and pit yet again, erstwhile leader Lance Stroll and Albon had no pace on their second set of inters so offered no threat from behind. The other Racing Point of Sergio Perez was fading fast in second and Leclerc and Vettel caught him at the very end, with Leclerc getting ahead on the final lap only to lock up into the hairpin and run deep.
Vettel nipped in to grab third and thought he might even steal second on the line as Perez scrabbled for traction exiting the final corner.
“I don’t think he had anything, not even another lap left in his tyres,” said Vettel.
“A bit of a surprise to snatch the podium in the end but certainly very happy. It was a really enjoyable race in very tricky conditions. It was a fun afternoon.”
It all meant that Vettel cut a very different figure post-race to the one we have seen so much of this season. Vettel has never hidden from the fact he has struggled to be properly quick in the SF1000 but he has also made a few high-profile mistakes, including spins in Austria, Britain and Germany.
It has combined to make for a challenging season, Vettel’s worst in F1, and far from the Ferrari farewell he wants as he prepares to leave the team.
That form has inevitably led to tough questions and, from some quarters, blunt observations that Vettel may not be the driver he once was. The four-time world champion took umbrage with a question from The Race in this regard, when asked if he felt the podium proved he remains capable of the same quality as before.
Though he conceded that it has been a “difficult season” with moments where “certainly I haven’t been at the top of my game”, he insisted: “But I don’t doubt that I can do a good job in the car and don’t feel that anything has changed.”
Turkey was an opportunistic and emphatic reminder of that. And it justifies an emerging theory from Ferrari that Vettel has been making progress in recent weeks, either buoyed by the SF1000’s ongoing refinements or more of an understanding from his side of the garage how to get the most out of it. It’s just been cloaked by a lingering qualifying weakness.
The Vettel that starred in Turkey will be an enormous asset to Racing Point in its transformation to Aston Martin next year, exactly the kind Ferrari will be sad to lose. Though he has had his struggles this season he has also grabbed the rare opportunities to show the value of his experience and racecraft, even if the stars haven’t always aligned.
In Hungary and Spain he grabbed sixth-place finishes (his previous best result this year) by overruling Ferrari on tyres and executing a tricky strategy respectively. On F1’s return to Imola, the previous round before Turkey, Vettel was on course to make a very long first stint pay off with a points finish from a lowly grid slot before a slow pitstop.
A driver of Vettel’s calibre should be mourned when he leaves a team but his goodbye to Ferrari was looking painful for the wrong reasons. At the very least, finishing on the podium in Turkey can be the charming twist his season needed to end in a more fitting way.
It can also be justification for anyone who believes he can rediscover his best form. Given the opportunity, Vettel showed he still belongs at the front in F1.
If his move to Aston Martin can unlock the one-lap performance this season has lacked, he will not need outlying races like this to be at the sharp end.
