Vettel brushes off early season title talk

Sebastian Vettel has said that it's far too early in the 2018 season to be thinking about the world championship. The German has taken victory at the opening two races of the year, and leads rival Lewis Hamilton in the standings by 17 points.

Vettel benefitted from a well-timed virtual safety car in Australia, and held on in Bahrain to keep Mercedes' Valtteri Bottas at bay, despite driving on very worn tyres. It marked the first time since Brazil and Abu Dhabi in 2013 that Vettel won two races in a row.

But with 19 races left to run, Vettel says that it is far too early to be discussing the world championship. The 30-year-old led the standings last year for over five months, but missed out on the championship after a series of mishaps towards the end of the season.

"I think we have so many races nowadays that it’s as long, long way," Vettel said. "I think it’s important if you want to fight for the championship to score a lot of points every race. The more, the better, but at this point it’s nonsense to be even thinking of where you might be. 

"Obviously there’s a lot of work ahead of us. The train is leaving. Everybody is putting on new parts and improving their cars, so we need to make sure we’re on that train amongst those teams that will be strong also at the end of the season. That, I think, will be key to fight for the championship."

Statistically, China is Mercedes' strongest circuit in terms of qualifying, as they have been on pole for the past six consecutive years, only failing to convert pole into victory in 2013. Vettel admits that the Silver Arrows are the favourites heading into the third round of the season in Shanghai.

"The first two races have been quite different, so it’s not that straightforward to predict the third one. I think overall if you take into account all the testing we did, then Mercedes is still the favourite going in [to China].

"Certainly we’ll try to have a different outcome than that. I think if we do our homework, if we get the car balance right and we get everything together, then it should be a good weekend - I don’t see why not," he concluded.