Vettel: I wouldn't have caught Hamilton

Sebastian Vettel poured cold water on suggestions that poor Ferrari strategy and a sluggish pit-stop denied him the chance to win the Hungarian Grand Prix. After running with an off-set strategy, a late battle with Lewis Hamilton looked on the cards, but Vettel emerged from his service stuck behind Valtteri Bottas and had to settle for second.

On a longer opening stint than the Mercedes pair, Vettel had opened up a pit-stop window over Bottas, running in third, but Ferrari did not call him in and he lost vital seconds while fighting his way through traffic before he eventually pitted.

Despite being fitted with ultrasoft tyres, it took Vettel 24 laps to get beyond the soft-shod Bottas, by which time Hamilton had a clear gap and was cruising to a victory which extended his championship lead over the German to 24 points heading into F1's summer break.

Vettel was not pointing the finger afterwards, however, doubting he would have been able to pass Hamilton even if he had been released into clean air after his stop.

"Obviously something didn't go as we planned," Vettel said.

"It was good that we were faster on an older tyre than Valtteri and pulled a gap. Then I think it's a bit difficult to foresee the traffic and – knowing how well you go through traffic or not – and in that case I lost quite a lot. So that was one.

Podium! #Seb5 #Kimi7 #HungarianGP #ForzaFerrari pic.twitter.com/ysJTaLuJA2 — Scuderia Ferrari (@ScuderiaFerrari) July 29, 2018

"I think the ultrasoft was a lot stronger in the race than it was on Friday, and then what we expected going on. You soft-of know but you don't know.

"Obviously Lewis' information, they don't call us and say 'our tyres still look good – you can come in earlier.' That's not how it works.

"The worst that can happen is that you come in earlier, you gain the position and then you fall apart at the end. You don't want to do that.

"I think what we did was OK.

"But then, as it turned out, with the circumstances and so on, we obviously lost out and we came out behind. Surely, that didn't help.

"I think without that it would have been a much more relaxed last part of the race, probably hunting down Lewis, but with the gap that he had, I think it would have been difficult to catch – and then it's a completely different story, especially around here to overtake.

"So I think we could have done the catching bit but not really the overtake, so, in the end it doesn't change much to the final result. Just that it was a bit more work than coming out ahead."