» Vettel: “We were the quickest”

Sebastian Vettel was understandably disappointed, yet philosophical, about losing a certain victory at the season-opening Bahrain GP.

After clinching pole and waltzing away to a comfortable lead at the start – which he retained after his pit stop – a spark plug failure saw a drop in power.

Overtaken first by Fernando Alonso, he lost second and then third places to Felipe Massa and Lewis Hamilton respectively.

Somehow he managed to stagger around the track and managed to hold off Nico Rosberg’s closing Mercedes GP for fourth place, saying as much about Vettel’s car management as it did about the lack of end-of-race pace from Sebastian’s compatriot in the Silver Arrows…

"It’s a pity but what can you do?" he told reporters after the race. " All in all, it was a positive weekend…except for the failure. Under any conditions from Saturday morning onwards we were the quickest. I think we had very good control of the race, a very good strategy and I knew how my tyres were.

"I just lost power. I don’t know what it was but I think something broke mechanically. Luckily we could continue but we should have won."

[Original image via GP Update]