Vettel Happy with Return to Form in Texas

Austin (USA), Nov 3 (AFP) A revitalised Sebastian Vettel smiled with pleasure despite missing out on pole position for the United States Grand Prix by just 0.012 seconds in Saturday's qualifying.

He was just beaten to pole by Mercedes Valtteri Bottas after a closely fought session that brought Ferrari's run of six poles in succession to an end.

But four-time champion German Vettel was buoyant about his chances of grabbing a second win of the season in Sunday's race at the Circuit of the Americas.

"It was very exciting because we were all so close. In my final run, we were already a little bit down. I had two decent laps," said the German.

"We hope to have a good start off the line which will be crucial. We are on the medium tyre with the others, so nobody has a advantage there so we will have a busy race - and it should be fun."

His Ferrari team-mate Charles Leclerc said he was satisfied by qualifying fourth after missing the entire morning practice session following an engine failure.

The team changed his power-unit before qualifying, using a previously-used engine again.

The Monegasque driver said he did not know why most drivers failed to improve their lap times at the end of Q3.

"I'm not sure to be honest," he said.

"I'm the only one to improve, but it may be because I lacked a bit of running. I got the speed a bit too late!

"We had to change my power unit so that gave me less advantage, but we are still very quick on the straights and it is a long race. We are all very close." (AFP)

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