According to Sebastian Vettel, Aston Martin did the right thing by giving Lance Stroll the team’s only upgrade package. Despite this, interestingly, Vettel was able to out-qualify Stroll in Portugal.
After the first two races, Stroll was the highest-scoring driver within the team, which led to Aston Martin giving him the upgrade package. Vettel said Stroll was more familiar with the car and was, therefore, the right candidate for the upgrade.
“Obviously he felt a lot more comfortable, straight away, with the car compared to me,” said Vettel. “So I think it was logical.”
Vettel will be 10th on the grid after making his first appearance in Q3. Stroll, however, will start 17th.
“Obviously we have a big split between the cars now in terms of qualifying positions, just the other way round [compared to] the last races,” Vettel acknowledged.
“Ideally, we [would] have them closer together, to also work a bit more together in the race. But I think we still have to and want to improve.”
Even though Vettel has had a significantly better performance, he claims that he is ‘still learning about the car’.
“It’s going to be a long season,” he said. “But these couple of races now are very crucial to get on top of it. We’re still changing a lot of things one session to another, to just explore the limits.”
The four-time world champion spoke about how he is learning from his teammate.
“Lance has a different style, obviously every teammate is a bit different,” Vettel explained.
“There’s definitely in terms of the approach, driving some corners, quite a bit of a difference that I can learn from and probably also the same thing the other way around.
“I think he had a good start to the season and definitely was more comfortable and faster than me in the beginning. So hopefully we are closer now, for the next races.”
What do you think about Stroll getting the new upgrades? Let us know in the comments below!
Read More: “It was clear in advance”: Vettel reveals Stroll has a ‘different’ car to him
I think it was fair. The driver with the most points gets the upgrade if its the only one available. It’s been done before with other teams. Let’s move on.