Lewis lead is Sochi worry for Sebastian

SEBASTIAN VETTEL admitted he fears losing more ground on Lewis Hamilton at the Russian Grand Prix in Sochi tomorrow.

The Ferrari driver already trails world champion Hamilton (above) by 40 points with six races remaining, and said: “Some Fridays are good, some aren’t and this one hasn’t been great for us.

“We are not where we want to be yet and we’ve got some catching-up to do.

“We went through the tyres too fast, especially the front left, and struggled a bit with both the fast laps and with fuel on board.”

Mercedes have won every Russian Grand Prix since the first in 2014, with Hamilton twice victorious and team-mate Valtteri Bottas winning last year after now-retired Nico Rosberg in 2016 – and they can count on upgrades for Sunday’s race.

And Hamilton sounded an ominous warning, saying: “Sochi has been one of the weaker circuits for me in the past, particularly last year.

“So I’ve done a lot of work to understand the balance and see where I can improve to rectify this. Today has been good in that sense.”

An overnight fire in the garages of the Haas Formula One team burned two sets of tyres, but could have been much more serious admitted principal Guenther Steiner.

He said: “There was somewhere a short-circuit and it went on fire – luckily the night guards extinguished it otherwise we could have a lot more damage. It looked really bad.”