Vettel admits: "To be honest, for years I didn't appreciate that as much"

Aston Martin has had a difficult start to the season but managed to score its first points of the year at Imola with an eighth-place finish for Sebastian Vettel and a tenth place finish for Lance Stroll. Vettel calls that result "very important" for his team.

The pace of the AMR22 is limited by the fact that the team is forced to adjust the ride height to counteract the problems with porpoising, a problem that Mercedes is also still struggling with. That the team nevertheless finished with both cars in the points in Imola, Vettel calls it a 'very important' result.

The double points finish feels like a small reward for the huge amount of work the team has put in to get the best out of a car that is not working as hoped. "It's harsh. You work your arse off and you know when you have a good package it’s easy to score good results," said Vettel in conversation with The Race.

For top teams, it is all about perfecting as much as possible, but according to Vettel it is overlooked that teams in the backfield do just as much work in an attempt to win places. "To be honest, for many years I did not appreciate as much because I wasn’t there," he admits.

The fact that there is usually no reward after the race makes it all the more difficult, according to the German. "Try and make your dog jump without a cookie to please him afterwards, it’s hard," Vettel continued. He is therefore happy that this time his team was rewarded for their hard work.