OMNISPORT

Sebastian Vettel is confident he can still catch Lewis Hamilton in the drivers' championship despite falling 24 points behind the Mercedes man.

After victory at the British Grand Prix, Vettel led Hamilton by four points in the standings but he has since seen his rival overtake him prior to the mid-season break. A retirement at Hockenheim allowed Hamilton to move ahead and Vettel slipped further adrift after the Briton won in Hungary last time out.

Vettel was able to claim second place at the Hungaroring but he faces an uphill challenge to deny Hamilton from retaining the title, despite impressive performances from his Ferrari.

He is not giving up just yet, though, with nine races to come once the season restarts in Belgium on August 26.

"We had sometimes the pendulum swinging our way, sometimes not," said Vettel, as quoted by the official F1 website. "From my point of view, I think it's been fairly consistent. The one error that was very costly [in Germany] - that was quite small, because I wasn't even trying but went off.

"That's part of the game. I can't rewind the clock. It has happened. It obviously hurt us, but I'm quite confident that if we have the car to fight with, we can put them under pressure and make things happen in the second half. Last year, we lost the championship I think because our car wasn't quick enough to be a match in the final part of the season.

"So I hope that this year, and I think this year has shown so far that our car is more efficient, our car is stronger and still has a lot of potential to unleash. I'm quite confident with what's sitting in the pipeline that we can improve. So we'll see. It should be an exciting second part of the year."