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Sebastian Vettel says that an ERS problem hindered his progress during qualifying for the Monaco Grand Prix.
The reigning world champion set the fourth quickest time in Q3 but reckons his Red Bull RB10 was not at its optimum potential throughout the session.
"I had some problems in qualifying today," he said. "Somewhere in Q1 we lost ERS, so basically the electric power to discharge the car and we didn’t get it back.
"In the end we ran a different mode which was fine, but surely not as good as it should be. It was the first time it had failed this weekend, but these things happen.
"We tried lots of different modes, but at some point you have to just get your head down and get on with it."
Vettel believed that Red Bull would be closer to Mercedes - the German was half a second slower than compatriot Nico Rosberg.
"My time was okay but then we weren’t able to improve on the second flying lap in Q3 as there was a yellow flag," he said.
"I thought we would give Mercedes a hard time today, but we struggled with some things and the gap was too big – it’s still good to be on the second row for tomorrow."
