Winning the British Grand Prix on Sunday was a dream come true, Sebastian Vettel has revealed.
Speaking to reporters after recording his second win of 2009, as part of Setanta Ireland’s Formula 1 coverage, Vettel was delighted to have picked up his second victory of the season and in such convincing fashion.
“Winning races is never easy,” he insisted. “It's always a long race, particularly at this fantastic circuit. You have to stay focused and keep your eyes open all the time.
"This is what I have been dreaming of since I saw my first Grand Prix here at Silverstone in era of [Nigel] Mansell and so on. It is unreal now to think I am here, that I have made it and I have won this race, so I'm very, very happy."
A decent start and opening stint of the race was the key reason behind the Red Bull’s victory. He explained: "The start was important. In the first stint I tried to push as hard as I could to try and build a gap.
“I knew that that would be crucial because then I would benefit from it the whole race, which worked perfectly. I had a fantastic car - it was unbelievable. I was able to push more and more as the tyres were very consistent.
“The second stint wasn't easy at all. When the team said to be careful, I had a lot of traffic, a lot of lapped cars. They were battling each other at that stage, so it is tricky when you come from behind.
“So, it was anything else but easy. You had to stay patient and that was difficult because I knew I had a big gap but I couldn't see it so I was always asking and checking how I was doing.”
He concluded: “The win shows that we are on the right way. Every single person has been working so hard - it doesn't matter at the track or back in the factory, bringing the car to where it is not is just fantastic.
“We have seen our car is behaving fantastically well in all sorts of corners, so the rhythm is really nice. I also think we have made a nice step forward. We have improved the car a bit everywhere and therefore I think it all came together. We did a good job, the whole team is working fine and if you want to say it in that way we were quite dominant today."