The winner of the first race of the season Sebastian Vettel is happy that hard work from his team finally pays off, but warns that the victory in Australia is only a small achievement on the road to their ultimate goal.
After a very good first season at Ferrari 2015., when Vettel won his second race for the team in Malaysia, Vettel and Ferrari had a frustrating last season when they finished in third place without a single victory.
But after technical restructuring and directing resources early to their new car for 2017, Ferrari looks a lot better with the new SF70H finally showed the courage that they were lacking so much in recent years.
“Before two or three years, it was clear that we have a lot of work and a lot of restructuring to do, I think the team was at a low,” reflected Vettel on the situation in Ferrari after the 2014 season.
“The atmosphere was very good in my first year in 2015. I think that last year was also very good, not the results, but in terms of growth. It is good sometimes to hit bottom and go through difficult times, although it feels pretty bad.”
“If you look at the race after the race situation is not great, but it’s important to see what happens in the background. I think the people in the team always believed and in the past six months they have been very quiet.”
“We did our job and it’s slowly starting to pay off. Now we are at the peak [after winning in Australia], but this is just a small achievement.”
The victory in Australia was the first for Vettel and Ferrari since Singapore 2015 and the first time that the Ferrari driver leads in the standings since 2012.
“If you look at who we are fighting, I think the Mercedes was phenomenal in recent years, from the outside they don’t have weaknesses and they are doing a fantastic job.”