Vettel says 'aggressive' approach will aid Hamilton fight

Sebastian Vettel says he will remain "aggressive" in the remaining four races of 2018 as he tries desperately to salvage his title fight with Lewis Hamilton. The Mercedes man will be crowned world champion at the United States Grand Prix if he outscores Vettel by eight points.

Vettel and Ferrari have seen their challenge melt away in recent months, with Hamilton winning six of the past seven races while the German's efforts have been hampered by errors on the track and pit wall.

A botched overtake attempt on Max Verstappen cost Vettel precious points last time out in Japan, but the Ferrari man says he cannot afford to take a gentler approach.

"It's very simple – we are quite some points behind. We focus on winning, then we see what the others are doing, so it's quite straightforward, to be honest," he explained.

"I always try to win. I think you have to be aggressive to win, and of course you need to find the right balance. You never try to do something silly or not to finish, because that way you can't win.

"I know what it takes, I know what to do, so in that regard it's fairly similar but for sure we know that we need to take a bit more risk because we are not in a position to manage the gap in the championship, because we don't have a gap."

Asked if he agreed that Hamilton and Mercedes have outperformed Ferrari in 2018, Vettel replied: "So far yes. It's pretty obvious, you just have to look at the points.

"Unfortunately some of the races didn't go our way at all, and they were able to benefit from that, but they were very strong benefitting from that.

"It's not just we step aside and they were there; I think they had to do their job and they did it to get the points.

"Obviously it hurt us, but well played to them. From our side obviously it wasn't ideal, but that's done now, that's in the past. We can't change it.

"I think some [races] I should've done better. If you want to name one, then Hockenheim. Some that maybe we should've done better.

"Overall I think we just didn't have enough races where we had the speed to dominate the weekend, put the car on pole and finish first. Unfortunately it didn't happen often enough."

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