Sebastian Vettel qualified in third place behind the two Mercedes drivers for Sunday evening's Bahrain Grand Prix, almost half a second off the pace set by Valtteri Bottas as he secured his first ever pole position.
When qualifying started almost everyone was convinced that Ferrari would come out on top with the searing pace they have been displaying on the Bahraini track all weekend long.
However, according to Vettel, even though he felt better with the way the car was handling, he believes he may have pushed just that little bit too hard and that's what could have caused him to lose those few precious tenths of a second when he needed it the most…..
“Overall, it has been a good day. Yesterday I couldn't get the right feeling, I kept sliding too much,” he explained. “We made some minor tweaks on the set-up and the car felt better today, I was quite happy with the balance. But in qualifying, after seeing what the gap was at the end of my first run in Q3, I wasn't so happy, so I tried it all and maybe pushed a bit too much."
"This is a circuit where you can easily overshoot it. Today, we were losing a bit everywhere around the lap, perhaps more than usual down the straights. But tomorrow it should be closer, and hopefully we'll have a tight race. The car feels good for Sunday.
