Vettel explains: 'It helped us to go longer'

Sebastian Vettel did some good business during the Azerbaijan Grand Prix on Sunday afternoon. The German finished second in the race and collected 18 points. With that, he continues the line of his good performance in Monaco.

The four-time world champion noticed this weekend that his team was doing well, he told the press conference. "We had good pace; that was key. I had a good start, made some positions straight away, looked after my tyres as soon as everybody went to the pits. I had really good pace to overcut I think Yuki (Tsunoda, red.) at least and then obviously the re-start worked brilliantly for me and got another two positions there. Yeah, we obviously had fresher tyres, which I guess helped, warming up the tyres later on."

"Strategy-wise obviously it’s always better to start further up but that new tyre for sure didn’t hurt," Vettel continued. "Because other people had a couple of laps on from qualifying so it helped us to go longer but we really preserved the tyres while and that was the secret, plus the pace that we had. I think in the race as I said the car felt good and that was the key to keep progressing and chipping forward."

His teammate Lance Stroll, like Max Verstappen, had to leave the track early. The driver hit the wall hard due to a flat tire and was unable to continue.