Vettel says poor balance, rather than a revised engine map, was the key factor in Red Bull's Hungarian qualifying form

Red Bull was forced to alter its engine mapping after the FIA clarified on Thursday that the team's interpretation of torque curve rules in recent races had been incorrect.

The double world champion, who had been inside the top two in each of the last three dry qualifying sessions, will begin Sunday's race from third place on the grid after setting a Q3 time over 0.4 seconds slower than polesitter Lewis Hamilton.

Vettel said, however, that it was not his new engine map, but a poor balance from his Red Bull RB8 that had been the key factor in his performance.

"I don't think the engine map really affected us as much as people think," the German said. "We were struggling a little to find the balance through the weekend but it has nothing to do with the mapping.

"We seem to have lost a little something compared to yesterday, so we've come into qualifying and failed to improve session-by-session."

However, he is still hopeful of challenging for victory, despite having Romain Grosjean's Lotus between himself and Hamilton's McLaren on the grid.

"Romain was in reach today, but not Lewis. He was too fast," he added. "But I still think we'll have good race pace tomorrow because the pace with fuel in the car is better than the pace with no fuel."