Vettel: 'Small mistake' was costly
ByAutoSport
Published 28/11/2015 at 16:05 GMT
Sebastian Vettel described the miscalculation that put him out in the first part of Abu Dhabi Formula 1 qualifying as "a small mistake with a big consequence".
Eurosport
Image credit: Eurosport
The Ferrari driver missed the cut in Q1 after Ferrari mistakenly assumed his time of 1m42.941s would be safe to get him through to Q2.
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It means Vettel will start the race 16th on the grid, while his team-mate Kimi Raikkonen lines up third.
"We thought we were quick enough, we thought that time was enough," said Vettel after qualifying.
"It turned out not to be. It's not very spectacular, but that's what happened.
"We try every weekend to do our best and this weekend we didn't get it right.
"It's a small mistake with a big consequence. Quite costly, but we know what happened.
"Now we need to start the race from further back. That's the challenge."
Raikkonen made it through to Q2 without having to sacrifice another set of tyres, and Vettel conceded his team-mate did a better job to make that strategy work.
"Kimi was quicker - I should have done a quicker lap then I could have made it," Vettel added.
"For tomorrow that means there's a lot of cars ahead of us that shouldn't be ahead so it's up to us to turn it around.
"There are quite a lot of cars that we are quite a bit quicker than, so hopefully we can clear them and then we'll see.
"We have to be awake, we have to be ready. You can overtake here - sometimes it's not easy, but it's not impossible."
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