Vettel: My biggest enemy in F1 2018 is me

Sebastian Vettel has taken full responsibility for his string of mistakes during the 2018 Formula 1 season and admits they have been his biggest downfall this year.

Vettel heads into this weekend’s Singapore Grand Prix trailing chief title rival Lewis Hamilton by 30 points, having spun to the back of the field following an opening lap clash between the pair at the Italian Grand Prix. He recovered to fourth but lost further ground to Hamilton in the championship as the Briton claimed his sixth win of the season.

Monza marked the latest blip in a campaign that has been littered with driver errors, with Vettel losing valuable points after mistakes in Baku, France and Germany, the latter of which saw Vettel out of a comfortable lead in damp conditions.

But Vettel is remaining positive about his chances due to the strength of Ferrari’s 2018 challenger, with the Scuderia appearing to boast the strongest package on the grid after making impressive power gains.

“I think it is pretty straightforward for me. I think the biggest enemy is me and I think we have a great car, I have something to play with and we have all the chances to do it in our way,” Vettel conceded.

“Obviously he [Hamilton] is the leader at the moment, he’s the one ahead and he is the one to beat, but I think we have all the chances and how much they could be better by now and so on is a different question.

“We still have a very good chance, and as I said, we will be our first enemy and not him as a person or them as a team. I think we need to look after ourselves and if we do that we have a good chance to do well and win races and things look good.”

Vettel admits he felt disappointed by his mistakes at the time but feels there is no point dwelling on the past.

“I think on the day it was a different story – I think it is normal that you do a lot of race and some you feel you could have done better or should have done better for different reasons,” he explained.

“I think there were also other races where we shouldn’t have done so well and we did. But for sure the worst one was Germany. I think most important is that I know what happened and I can explain it and then everyone is free to have their own views on what happened.

“I would have loved to win in Germany, for sure, but I’m not too bothered and I’m generally looking forward and not focusing on what we all could have done differently to avoid what happened.”