Sebastian Vettel's Spanish GP F1 engine change 'a miracle'

The German's engine was changed after final practice as a precaution when a water leak was found, but he was still one of the first cars out at the start of qualifying.

Vettel suffered a scare on his second lap when he was told to stop the car, but after changing some settings in the cockpit he was able to resume full speed without needing to pull over or return to the pits.

In the end he missed out on pole by just 0.051s to the Mercedes of Lewis Hamilton.

"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."

Vettel 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, and 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 said.

"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."

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."