British GP: Red Bull's Sebastian Vettel bemoans difficult start

World champion Sebastian Vettel believes a poor start to the British Grand Prix cost him the chance of challenging for a second victory of the season.

The Red Bull driver, who won the Bahrain GP in April, qualified fourth but spent much of his opening stint battling to get past Ferrari's Felipe Massa and the Mercedes of Michael Schumacher for third.

"My start was not too good," said the German. "It was a busy race and we had a good strategy, which brought us back and I kept gaining time, but it was difficult to get it all back."

Next up is the German Grand Prix on 22 July, and Vettel is confident of an even better performance at his home race.

"I am looking forward to a bit of a break and then Germany," he added.

"We have a good car and we should be competitive there. I am looking forward to better weather and we will see what happens."

Michael Schumacher feels he achieved the best he could have hoped for at Silverstone, with the seven-time world champion claiming seventh place.

"We achieved what was possible for us, and we have to be satisfied with that," he said.

"We were pretty competitive towards the end of the race, but overall we knew that the characteristics of this circuit wouldn't suit us in normal conditions.

"We managed to score a few points, which can be important for the team. Our attention now turns to Hockenheim, our next home circuit, where things should look better in any case. Like always in Germany, it will be a very special weekend."

Team-mate Nico Rosberg, however, was hugely disappointed with his 15th place finish.

"The whole weekend just hasn't gone to plan for me which is a bit unexpected and really disappointing," he said.

"In the race, I had a poor start and generally we just didn't have the pace. Then a slow second pit stop held me up towards the end; so all in all, it really didn't come together."

Ferrari's Felipe Massa took heart from his fourth place and is confident of being able to challenge for podium finishes in the coming races.

The Brazilian said: "It was a good race. To finish fourth after a lot of problems this season for us this was a good result. I even had a chance to fight for third before Sebastian Vettel overtook me. Hopefully we can keep fighting for the podium now in every race."

For Paul Di Resta, it was a race to forget as the Force India driver retired early on after he spun off the track with a puncture following a collision with Romain Grosjean in the first lap.

"I'm very disappointed because we took a gamble on Saturday by running a dry set-up and the conditions in the race would have been ideal for us," he said.

"On a positive note I want to say a big 'thank you' to the fans who have put up with the weather and shown amazing support all week."

The clash did not prevent Romain Grosjean from continuing and the Lotus driver went on to finish sixth, one place behind team-mate Kimi Raikkonen.

"I'm happy with my race," said Grosjean. "A Force India hit me and broke my front wing and that's when I thought that our race was going to be seriously compromised.

"But the team did a fantastic job in giving me a great race strategy and we believed in ourselves to go for long stints with both sets of hard tyres."

Sauber's Kamui Kobayashi was also involved in an incident with his own pit crew during the race.

The Japanese driver overcooked his approach into the pit box when coming in for a second pit stop, hitting three mechanics. Two of the team suffered minor injuries whilst a third suffered a bruised foot.

"I am terribly sorry this happened, and I hope the three mechanics I hit get well soon," said Kobayashi, who finished 11th. "Up to this happening my race was good. I had improved from 17th on the grid to a top 10 position, and was hoping for points."