For a man with four world championships to his name, you would not expect Sebastian Vettel to ever be satisfied with second place.
But, under the circumstances, the Ferrari driver had every reason to be upbeat following Saturday’s qualifying ahead of Sunday’s Australian Grand Prix in Melbourne.
He was beaten to pole position by Mercedes-GP’s Lewis Hamilton, but he put himself on the front row with final lap of qualifying as he edged ahead of the second Mercedes of Valtteri Bottas.
It is the first time since the Russian Grand Prix last May that the German has lined up on the front row for the race, but the fact that on Saturday he was a legitimate threat to the Mercedes cars and was only 0.268 seconds off Hamilton’s pole-setting time of 1 minute, 22.188 seconds around Albert Park was impressive, when put in context.
This is Vettel’s third season with Ferrari, and it was at this track two years ago that he made his debut, and he qualified fourth, 1.4 seconds off Hamilton, who took pole.
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Last season he was third fastest, behind the Mercedes pair of Hamilton and Nico Rosberg, with the gap down to 0.8 seconds – still a large deficit but a sign of improvement.
That will be how Vettel will feel going into the 58-lap race on Sunday. The SF70H chassis is clearly a step up on the 2016 chassis, and the fact that Vettel was able to out-qualify a Mercedes car, in the shape of Bottas, fair and square shows how far the Italian team have progressed.
Vettel, whose last race victory was in Singapore 2015, said of his performance in the post-qualifying news conference: “In the end, I was not entirely happy with the lap, pretty happy in the end but not the bit where I lost too much.
“I would have loved to, but I don’t think pole was up for grabs.
“Qualifying on the first row is a very good opening to a long, long season.”
As Vettel says, there is a lot of racing to be done before the final race of the season at the Etihad Airways Abu Dhabi Grand Prix on November 26.
Vettel does not have to win on Sunday. If he can be competitive and put in a strong performance against Hamilton it will give hope that he and Ferrari are genuine contenders.
Victory is very much possible on Sunday though. If the German can get the lead at the start, with the race expected to be one-stop in terms of pit stops, then he could be very hard for Hamilton to beat, given overtaking at Albert Park is not easy unless you have a big speed advantage on the car ahead.
Vettel did take the lead from third on the grid 12 months ago, as both Mercedes cars were slow off the line, and he would have won then had it not been for his team botching their tyre strategy after the race had been stopped following Fernando Alonso’s heavy crash.
As history would show that season the Ferrari was no match for Mercedes on raw speed, but with track position they could stay in front of them on tracks where it was hard to pass.
It is unclear how the new aerodynamic regulations will affect the cars in terms of allowing them to overtake, so the start of the race could well define the afternoon’s action.
Hamilton will know that starting at the front in Australia is no guarantee of success.
He has started on pole for five of the past six years, but has only won on one of those occasions, in 2015, which was the lone time that he stayed ahead out of the first corner.
“It’s been a fantastic weekend so far. I’m incredibly proud of my team,” Hamilton said of the 62nd pole position of his career.
“Valtteri did a great job and it’s great for us as Mercedes. It’s going to be a tight race.
“Tomorrow is about putting all the work together and making sure I come back stronger than ever.”
Bottas, who has replaced retired world champion Rosberg, was frustrated to miss out on being on the front row, and said: “Third position is not ideal.
“In general I’m not happy for the result. But I’m proud of what the team has done.”
gcaygill@thenational.ae
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