Vettel qualified second, 0.051s behind Lewis Hamilton, and radioed on his in-lap – “I had it, I had it” – after he ran wide at the final chicane, locking up and missing the first apex.

He had been ahead of Hamilton over the majority of the lap.

“I’ve been coming here a long time, so many laps, and still the last chicane is a tricky one for me,” he rued. “First Q3 run I wasn’t entirely happy, I knew there was more.

“The second one was really good until that final chicane, it was really close. Well done to Lewis.”

Engine swap “miracle”

Vettel also paid tribute to his Ferrari mechanics, who changed his car’s engine between FP3 and qualifying, and survived a scare in Q1 when the team told him to stop the car due to an issue.

“A big thank you to the team, because we had to change the engine last minute and the car was just about finished, so today is really for the mechanics – also from Kimi’s car that helped out, grazie,” he said.

“Unbelievable, they did an engine change sub two hours. If you ever see the car stripped, there’s a lot of bits and bobs that needs to be reconnected. It’s a miracle that they got me out.

“It would have been nice to get them the pole, but hopefully we can do well tomorrow.”

On the subject of Ferrari’s upgrades for Barcelona, Vettel said he was happy with the development progress that the team had made.

“We have [upgrades] as well, some things you can see, some things you can’t,” he said. “Sometimes upgrades are more flashy than others, but the car is good.

“I felt yesterday we had it in the car. Today we could extract it, and there was maybe a tiny bit more. Much better in terms of feel today.”