Vettel not to blame for ‘being off so much’ in Melbourne

Aston Martin team boss Mike Krack said the problems Sebastian Vettel experienced in Australia were more car-related than from the driver himself.

The four-time World Champion’s mileage in practice was extremely limited, compounding his lack of time behind the wheel after missing the first two races of the season through testing positive for Covid-19.

The German admitted himself that the car was “too much of a handful” for him at the weekend, after crashing out of the race with a spin at Turn 4.

Krack agreed that this was the case for his driver.

“Fortunately, I’m happy that Seb is fine after all these incidents, but I think, if someone like him, a four-time World Champion, has the issues that he was having this weekend – this is not down to not driving, because he has driven the car,” Krack said, per F1i.

“We need to really look at what the car is providing him, what feedback he gets from the car. Him being off so much as he has been this weekend is not normal.”

The Aston Martin AMR22 was too much for Sebastian Vettel to handle at Albert Park.https://t.co/BDCzm5hfQF #F1 #AustralianGP pic.twitter.com/gUAH6DOwav

— PlanetF1 (@Planet_F1) April 10, 2022

Vettel’s return for his first start of the season left him behind in terms of his running inside in the AMR22, and his team boss doesn’t think his time sidelined will have affected how he drove, but rather the limitations of the car are rearing their head, and the team needs to come up with a solution quickly to arrest their decline.

“I do not think that this is related to having two missed races,” Krack added.

“I mean, he has been a multiple winner in Melbourne. He knows where he is here, he has had some tests with the car.

“I think it [would] be really easy to say he was not