“The tyres are overheating and there is a gremlin in the vehicle”. “No, no”, he cried as flames appeared and 25 world championship points disappeared in a puff of smoke.
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Formula One championship leader Lewis Hamilton was handed a lucky break in Singapore but the Mercedes driver can take little more than the heat and humidity for granted in Malaysia this weekend.
“There is a gremlin in the auto”, team boss Toto Wolff told Sky F1.
“It’s been a very hard day”.
“We will need to be on top of our game at every track to maintain our lead”, said Wolff.
“Certainly all three of us would have loved to have a different race – championship yes or no – but first we want to race and that’s what we set out to do in Singapore, unfortunately all three of us didn’t get very far”.
“It’s been a decent day”, said Vettel. If Ricciardo were to win in Malaysia, it would snap a three-month winless streak for Red Bull Racing, as the team’s last win came on Sunday, June 25th when Ricciardo won at Azerbaijan in a controversial race that may end up weighing heavily into the title tilt.
Raikkonen said: “Everything went smoothly, not too bad. I hope to see all the Malaysian fans at some other race and I hope they keep following us online”.
Verstappen, who has been linked with both Ferrari and Mercedes, echoed Vettel’s sentiments.
“We did try some new aero parts today, so one answer may be that one of those parts didn’t work as expected”, he said.
“Why? Because the vehicle is fast”. “We had quite limited running because of the rain in the morning”.
“The Sepang track features a good mix of low, medium and very high-speed corners, so the set-up needs to accommodate a large speed range”.
“We can still improve a lot”.
“I genuinely have always had support from all of my team, I have never had any complaints from them and I don’t anticipate there to be any”. ‘The seat itself is warm, and then we’re surrounded in the cockpit by the electrical boxes’.
Can Sebastian Vettel and Ferrari bounce back from their Singapore nightmare?
This race will feature on both Channel 4 and Sky Sports F1.
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Qualifying is on Saturday at 7am and 9am and the race starts on Sunday at 9am. If you wish to report any comment, simply click on the down arrow next to the offending comment and click “Report”.
