BELGIUM - Sebastian Vettel's 2014 season could be set to go from bad to worse.
The reigning world champion smiled meekly at Spa-Francorchamps when he responded to boss Christian Horner's recent claim that Vettel is 'tired' in 2014 after consecutive title campaigns.
Vettel told German reporters: "Not exactly a compliment!"
POOR RELIABILITY
He also said directly comparing his results in 2014 to new Red Bull sensation Daniel Ricciardo is "unfair", given his run of poor reliability.
Indeed, with each driver only allowed to run five engines all season, Vettel's fifth Renault V6 is to be fitted to his car at Spa-Francorchamps.
Vettel is quoted by Germany's Auto Motor und Sport: "It was always clear that it would catch up with me sooner or later."
More problems could mean that at qualifying-crucial races like Singapore, a ten-place grid penalty for an unscheduled engine change will be highly costly. So might Red Bull opt to voluntarily install Vettel's sixth engine at Monza, where grid position is not so important?
"We need to examine our options for Singapore and Japan, as we definitely don't want to go ten places back there," he admitted.
Asked about voluntarily taking a penalty at Monza, Vettel added: "That is hypothetical, but we could most likely live with a penalty."
Stay with Wheels24 for the 2014 Belgium GP this weekend.