SEPANG, Malaysia -- Sebastian Vettel described his engine problems in qualifying for the Malaysian Grand Prix as a bitter blow to his championship hopes, but is confident he can recover to fight with the leading cars in Sunday's race.
Vettel had looked like the favourite for pole position in Malaysia, but on Saturday morning an electrical issue occurred on his car in the final practice session. Ferrari changed the power unit in the two hour break between sessions as a precaution, which is standard procedure if the team does not understand or cannot fix the cause of the original issue.
The replacement power unit was made up of a new engine, new MGU-H as well as a previously used turbocharger -- a new turbocharger would have taken Vettel over his quota for the season and resulted in a ten-place grid penalty. It had been tested on a dyno in Maranello prior to the weekend without issue, but on its first flying lap in qualifying Vettel lost turbo pressure as he went through Turn 5.
"It's very bitter but this is motor racing," Vettel said. "It's been a difficult day but the guys were phenomenal fixing the car and changing the engine in just two hours.
"We initially thought we would be very late going out but we were on time, but there's not much you can do. It's a shame because the car is quick but that's also a good thing because tomorrow we have got a lot of laps to complete, and if the car is quick we should be able to get back."
Vettel will start last on the grid in Malaysia (barring any grid penalties for other drivers) after failing to set a lap time in qualifying. The result is a major blow for the Ferrari driver after crashing out of the lead of the Singapore Grand Prix two weeks ago while fighting for position on the opening lap.
"I don't believe in bad or good luck," Vettel added. "Obviously there's a reason why the issue happened today and we need to make sure we understand and it doesn't happen again. The race is tomorrow, so fortunately in a way it happened today, we saved a lot of tyres and we can choose a strategy, so there are also some positives."
Asked where he expected to finish in Sunday's race, Vettel added: "It's difficult to say, I expect that we get back, we have a quick car -- meaning get back to the leading group. For sure it's not ideal. I can't give you a number, I don't have an expectation in terms of a number, but anything can happen and that's why we go racing. I want to make sure we achieve our best, whatever that means, so we need to extract the maximum, but knowing the race here and the conditions it could be anything. I'm fairly open minded."