Vettel: We couldn’t match Hamilton’s pace

西巴stian Vettel concedes the faster driver won on Sunday as he was unable to keep pace with Lewis Hamilton in the United States GP.

The Ferrari driver made a flying start to take the lead off Hamilton at the Circuit of the Americas, however, it was short-lived.

The Mercedes driver fought back on lap 6 and immediately began to pull away from Vettel.

Although the German closed the gap in the first round of pit stops, he didn’t have the pace to challenge Hamilton for the lead while the decision to pit for a second time meant he dropped to fourth.

He recovered in the closing laps, passing first Valtteri Bottas and then Kimi Raikkonen, to finish P2.

“I think at the start it was looking good, we got past Lewis but fairly quickly we realised we couldn’t go his pace today,” Vettel said.

“Well done and congrats to him.

“Then we were in no man’s land and towards the end we decided to pit again, get a fresh set of tyres, which was a bit more exciting.

“But overall not the result we wanted.”

He added: “There was no real secret other than that they were quicker than us.

“We have to admit that, today in the race we couldn’t do their pace.

“It’s not down to strategy. Whoever is fastest usually has a good chance at winning.”