Sebastian Vettel reflects on 'painful' Australia practice as issue curtails F1 return

Sebastian Vettel is back in the Formula 1 paddock this weekend for the first time this season after shaking off covid.

The German will be eager to get back amongst it after missing the Bahrain and Saudi Arabian Grands Prix, but his return to the circuit on Friday in Australia did not exactly go how he would have liked.

The Aston Martin driver saw his car smoking up in FP1 and he had to pull to the side of the track, with him losing power, and the issue could not be resolved in time for FP2 later on in the day.

Indeed, with a new layout at Albert Park and with Seb having not been in the car for a while now, it was a far from auspicious start to his F1 return, and he explained to Sky Sports his thoughts on the day:

“Yeah obviously we had a problem and there was a bit of smoke and we lost power so I did the best I could to limit the damage and get the car off of the track as soon as possible.

“It stopped our running which was painful and unfortunately cost us running in the afternoon which was not ideal because I haven’t been in the car for a while plus the track is different. It’ll be fine tomorrow but it would have been nice to have had more laps.”