‘We’ve waited for that’ says Vettel after jumping Hamilton and Gasly to net first points for Aston Martin

Life at Aston Martin has been difficult for Sebastian Vettel, having joined from Ferrari ahead of this season, but the four-time world champion turned his fortunes around in Monaco, with fifth in the Monaco Grand Prix to score his first points of the season…

Vettel seemed the more confident of the Aston Martin drivers throughout practice – and was the only one to make it into Q3 with eighth on the grid, making it his 12 consecutive appearance in the final part of qualifying in Monaco.

In the race, he showed strong pace throughout, which allowed him to maximise the overcut to jump both Lewis Hamilton and Pierre Gasly and rise up into fifth – a position he comfortable held to the flag, with team mate Lance Stroll crossing the line eighth.

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“It was a good day, also to have both cars in the points,” said Vettel. “We have waited for that. A very important day for all of us, for the team and the guys. A good message also for everyone back in the factory. Monaco always has the potential to be a special race and it came our way this weekend.”

Vettel was very pragmatic about his lack of points before Monaco and is hopeful the strong result will be a springboard to better times ahead, starting with the upcoming Azerbaijan Grand Prix in Baku.

“It’s a long year,” said Vettel. “It was probably a question of time. Fifth for sure is a very strong result for us. We’ll take the points and hopefully we can be similarly strong in Baku. It’s a street circuit, even though the nature is very different, because it’s very fast with one long straight line – but we’ll see what we can do.”

Vettel’s fifth was only his second top five finish – the other was third in Turkey – since the start of 2020 and moves him into 11th on 10 points, one point and one place ahead of Stroll.