Sebastian Vettel: P8 felt like victory for Aston Martin at Imola

Four-time world champion Sebastian Vettel has said that his 8th place finish at Imola for Aston Martin in Sunday’s Grand Prix felt like a victory, as the team scored their first championship points of the season.

The team came into the bumper Sprint weekend in Italy without a point to their name, but leave with five now on the board as they aced their strategy in the wet/dry conditions on Sunday afternoon.

Both Vettel and team-mate Lance Stroll have shown in the past they are very adept drivers when it comes to handling mixed conditions and so that proved again, with the AMR22 appearing to respond and enjoy running in the cool, damp environment.

Of course, they have not been where they would have wanted to be so far this season but Imola could provide a good foundation on which to build, and Vettel admitted that 8th felt like a victory on Sunday, with Stroll coming home in 10th.

“For us, it was like a victory. We are not the fastest at the minute, we are pretty much at the other side of the field but we did really well.

“The weekend helped us with the conditions but we managed to capitalise. We did a great job on calling for the dries and everybody else then I think copied what we did. I was happy even to go a lap before, or two.”

The team now has a week off before jetting to Miami with the rest of the F1 circus for the inaugural Grand Prix in the American city.

It’s probably unlikely that we’ll have similar weather there as we did in Imola, but you never just know what could play out over the course of the weekend.

Certainly, it appears the Aston Martin runs well in such conditions similar to those at Imola, and so perhaps Sebastian and Lance will be considering a rain dance ahead of the weekend across the pond!

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