Happy Vettel welcomes fifth place

"Overall, this was a good race for us, even if the safety car didn't help," said Vettel, who had won the Italian Grand Prix two weeks ago.

"It was a difficult race for everyone, but the important thing is we have scored some more points. The hardest elements in the race were dealing with the heat and concentrating not to make any mistakes, as it could be very easy to clip a kerb.

"I tried to keep the car on track but still push like crazy. It was one of the toughest races of the season, but I think with everything that happened, this was the best result we could get.

"Maybe fourth might have been possible if I hadn't lost a place to Timo (Glock) when I missed a braking point, but we can be happy with this fifth place," added the Toro Rosso driver, who has scored points in the last four races to help his team move ahead of sister squad Red Bull Racing.

Teammate Sebastien Bourdais was not as pleased after a long night battling with his car's handling.

The Frenchman finished down in 12th.

"It was a tough race," said Bourdais. "When I was running on my own my brake balance was fine, but once I was in traffic I kept losing the front end, even with all the brake bias on the rear. I know it was difficult to pass here, but I was even having difficulty following other cars and didn't know where my limit was.

"It was a really tough race physically too, given how long it was and the lack of air coming through the cockpit and with a long last stint, I was running a heavy fuel load which meant my tyres were suffering towards the end. It's been a long night."