Aston Martin’s Sebastian Vettel says he feels “100 laps short” of where he would like to be following a ruffled pre-season test in Bahrain.
After completing 51 laps in sand-ridden conditions on Friday morning, his Saturday session was hampered by a gearbox problem, which saw him complete just 10 laps.
On Sunday, a loss of boost pressure ended the four-time World Champion’s day early with a tally of 56 laps.
Despite the reliability issues, Vettel affirmed his final day in the car held a lot of value, but admits he isn’t content with the initial logged track time at his new team.
“Obviously I would have liked to just get more mileage, that’s the main thing,” Vettel said.
“Today was very busy and I tried to make use of the track time which I felt I did and felt was good for me and [I] learned a lot of things, so now it’s about remembering these things and going forward.
“This is really the key. I’m just short of mileage, we have a lot of tyre sets we didn’t use just because we didn’t run.
“Overall it’s probably 100 laps I’m short and something similar for Lance [Stroll], we didn’t both get what we wanted, but it is not a big deal, it is what it is and we’ve got to move on.”
With a less-than-ideal number of test laps under his belt as he continues to become accustomed to new surroundings, Vettel asserts he won’t panic over the situation.
“I’m not too preoccupied, maybe it is the age, maybe the experience,” he said.
“Probably 10 years ago I would slightly panic but then again if I were to panic now would it help? Probably not.
“Just trying to do our things and use the time now we have and still got some running, for me it was super useful, the laps today, so it could be worse, could be better but it could be worse.
“I think it is about remaining calm, doing one thing at a time and moving forward when it’s time to.”
