Vettel “sad to have driven my last race” at Suzuka

In brief

Vettel “sad to have driven my last race” at Suzuka

Vettel enjoyed a strong final visit to Suzuka. He reached Q3 and despite spinning off at the start an aggressive strategy helped him equal Aston Martin’s best finish of the season with sixth place, beating Fernando Alonso by a tenth of a second.

“I got a very good start but then I collided with another car at the first corner,” he said of his tangle with Fernando Alonso at turn one. “I really could not see anything – I am not sure, maybe I aquaplaned or I made a mistake – but I lost all the positions I had gained and ended up last.”

An early switch to intermediate tyres was a “good decision”, said Vettel. “It was a great stop, then I pushed like crazy and managed to undercut most of the field.”

He described his final appearance at Suzuka as an F1 driver as “a dream weekend – for us to score eight points is a mega result.

“I feel sad to have driven my last race here, but it has been a wonderful weekend, and to all the fantastic Suzuka fans I can only say, ‘Thank you’.”

Haas got strategy wrong, Steiner admits

Haas delayed its pit stops for both drivers and paid the price as both failed to score. Team principal Guenther Steiner admitted “we were caught on our back foot today with the strategy.”

“We were too reactive and not proactive, and we ended up down the classification,” he explained. “It’s very difficult to make these decisions as we all know, and afterwards we’re always smarter with hindsight. We’ll review what we did and see that we do better next time.”

F4 USA and Formula Regional Americas announce 2023 calendars

The US Formula 2 and Formula Regional Americas will share six race weekends in 2023. They will race at NOLA Motorsports Park, Road America, Mid-Ohio, New Jersey Motorsports Park, Virginia International Raceway and Circuit of the Americas.

Links

Motor racing links of interest:

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