Sebastian Vettel is to return ‘with a bang’

After a four successive title-winning year and record nine-race victories in a row, Vettel has begun the new F1 season in a worst shape than anyone could have predicted.

His team-mate, Australian youngster Ricciardo, is currently leading three-one in their qualifying duel and has beaten the World Champion on both occasions in the Chinese GP.

But Red Bull chief, Christian Horner, firmly believes that Vettel’s problems arose from the fact that the driver is unaccustomed to the RB10 car and it is only a matter of time until Vettel will make his comeback on the track.

‘Sebastian's having a tough time at the moment because he hasn't got that feeling from the car he's looking for. He's tremendously sensitive to certain aspects of the set-up, he's not getting the feedback from the car that he wants. The compound effect of that is he's damaging the tire more - which is very unusual for Seb since Pirellis were introduced [in 2011]. It's highly unusual for him to be going through the tire life quicker than the average,’ Horner declared, optimistically adding that ‘that's just a culmination of the issues that he's currently got and as soon as we work those out I'm sure he'll be back with a bang.’

Vettel, on the other hand, seems more pessimistic in his declarations, stating that ‘there are a lot of things in my head. Formula 1 got very complex and I think as a driver I think we have lost a lot of features and given a lot to the engineers. So it's not that easy to understand and stay on top of everything.’