The Ferrari driver finished a distant fourth after opting for a different strategy than his direct rivals.

Vettel stretched his first stint on supersofts longer than his rivals to take the lead before stopping for softs.

He then pitted for mediums just 15 laps later, but the VSC period caused by Max Verstappen aided drivers who were yet to pit.

"I think we had a good race," said Vettel. "We stayed out longer. Obviously other people in front us of pitted sooner so I think it was a chance for us to try something different.

"Then I think we pitted early to go on the medium tyre to keep track position to Max. Obviously a lap or two later the Virtual Safety Car comes out. That wasn't ideal.

"Otherwise I think we could have had a crack at the podium.

"But all in all I think the race was a lot better than qualifying in terms of competitiveness. Obviously a shame we didn't get both cars to the chequered flag."

Teammate Kimi Raikkonen was forced to retire from the race after Ferrari failed to secure one of his wheels properly in his final pitstop.

The team was fined 5000 euro for the incident.

"It was one of those weekends," said the Finn. "We had decent speed in the race. We never found out, nothing changed because we didn't finish the race.

"The fact is that we didn't finish. I noticed there was something not going on, I slowed down straight afterwards because I saw some sparks. I don't know the reason why it never got done 100 percent up, we have to find out."