Sebastian Vettel has admitted that his first few races with Aston Martin will involve a “bit of a learning curve”.
With Aston Martin suffering a few reliability issues during pre-season testing, Vettel was limited in the number of laps he was able to complete and revealed after the three-day session that it was taking time for him to get used to his new surroundings.
Looking ahead to the season-opening race in Bahrain, the four-time world champion said that while he was still familiarising himself to the team, he was very excited to start the new journey.
“It’s going to be a bit of a learning curve in these first few races,” Vettel said.
“For me, it’s a new team – I’m still getting to know everyone, still understanding how the AMR21 wants to be driven, and familiarising myself with the team. I’m very excited to be at the start of that journey in Bahrain this weekend.
“The conditions were very interesting during testing – high winds made it quite tricky to drive – and we know that tyre degradation is always a key factor here. It should make for an exciting race.”
Racing Point was rebranded as Aston Martin over the off-season and Lance Stroll, the Canadian teammate of Vettel for the 2021 season, said the team had “more performance to come”.
“The arrival of Aston Martin underlines all the potential in this team; it’s a very exciting moment for us all,” Stroll said.
“We’re continuing to develop as an organisation – that means we’ll have more people and more resources to understand the car and how it operates; but we’re still understanding how the team is growing. I don’t think we were able to show our full potential during the Bahrain test, so there’s definitely more performance to come during these opening races, which is exciting.”