Sebastian Vettel was furious with some drivers for their qualifying antics and for ruining his hot lap preparations.
Vettel was once again hard done by factors out of his control. While the Aston Martin looked poor in Abu Dhabi, he could still have gotten in Q3. Unfortunately, a bunch of other drivers decided to play roadblock, and he failed to do it.
The four-time world champion couldn’t put together a good lap due to massive traffic towards the end of Q2. Subsequently, he was knocked out of it, and will start the final race of the season in 15th place.
Vettel was furious with the drivers for their qualifying antics, and lamented their lack of awareness and professionalism.
“It’s bad when you have so many cars in the same spot,” he said, as quoted by Planet F1.
“And it’s always the same people jumping the queue, but they always get away with it, so I guess they have a reason.
“I tried to go back and use the time, but the tyres cooled down too much – more than I thought – and the lap was gone. We were stopping for like half a minute, so it didn’t help them.”
All to play for, but…
Even though qualification is only half the job, the German remained pessimistic regarding his chances of trying and overturning the situation he finds himself in.
Asked if he has the pace to overtake at Yas Marina, Vettel replied, “I don’t know.
“We’ll see. We’ll try and hopefully overtake a couple of cars and then have a good race.”
Fellow Aston Martin driver Lance Stroll also failed to make Q3, but he will start two places ahead of his teammate in P13.
“It wasn’t too bad for me, I think I was at the front of the queue,” he assessed.
“So it wasn’t as bad. I think maybe we had another tenth, but that was kind of our pace.”
Read more: Vettel believes Hamilton won’t achieve G.O.A.T status even if he wins 8th championship