Vettel: Russian GP is ours to lose

Sebastian Vettel believes himself and his team Ferrari have nothing to worry about despite now being 40 points behind Lewis Hamilton in the driver's championship.

There are just six races remaining on the 2018 calendar with a maximum of 150 points left on offer for Vettel to try and turn the championship standings around.

The 2018 championship has all been headlining on whether Vettel or Hamilton will reach their fifth world championship ahead of their rival.

It is looking all set to be Hamilton's fifth driver's title once the current season wraps up in November in Abu Dhabi.

Unless Vettel does something about it starting with next weekend's Russian Grand Prix in Sochi.

The Sochi Autodrom circuit is built around the Olympic Park and was introduced to the Formula 1 calendar in 2014 and has been featured ever since.

F1 Grand Prix of Russia

It gives the German a two-week gap to forget the errors him and his Italian team made to give Hamilton a ten point boost.

It will take a lot of work for Vettel to stop Hamilton now as the Briton has only retired once since his heartbreaking retirement at the 2016 Malaysian Grand Prix which would see Nico Rosberg go on and win the championship later on in the season.

But the four-time world champion looks to be confident to still challenge for the title.

He said: “We don’t have to fear any track that is coming, our car is working well in every track, so there’s nothing to fear until the end of the season,”

The German also added that the Russian Grand Prix should suit the Ferrari cars.

Vettel said. “Russia should suit our car; it’s getting better for us every year.”

When the 31-year-old was asked on the latest situation in the driver's championship standings, he was optimistic that there are still opportunities for Ferrari to reach the top before Mercedes.

He said: “Lewis said he didn’t expect to gain ten points and we didn’t expect to lose ten points. Having had the race that we had there is full justification for losing ten points and obviously we take it.

"There are still a lot of races to go and points to score. I never believed we have the faster car by a large margin like people said, but I know we have a very good car.”

Vettel has performed championship comebacks before especially in 2012 when he was trailing Fernando Alonso by 41 points only to go ahead of the Spaniard in the space of four races.

Vettel in 2012 after securing a third world championship at Red Bull

The German knows what it takes to fight from rock bottom all the way to the top.

Looking ahead to the next race, Vettel believes his Ferrari car is up to the challenge: "I think overall the speed is there but I think it’s a match as much in qualifying as in the race.

"On Sunday we were a little bit slower and we have to understand that, but also it’s difficult to draw a conclusion because our race was very different.

"There are a couple of differences that are standing out, about Saturday, about Sunday, so there are things that we can learn from the others because they simply did a better job – if they finish ahead of us by half a minute then clearly they did something better than us.”

Can Vettel comeback from 40 points down? Comment your thoughts below...

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