Vettel: You have to be aggressive to win

Speaking to reporters on Thursday, in Austin, Vettel explained, "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."

"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."

Vettel accepts that Mercedes have delivered and are the better team at this stage of the contest, "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," added Vettel who has a 67 points deficit to championship leader Lewis Hamilton with four rounds remaining in their duel for a fifth drivers' crown.