Ferrari Formula 1 chief Mattia Binotto has confirmed Sebastian Vettel was forced to back off and save fuel on th🐎e🅠 final lap of Sunday’s Azerbaijan Grand Prix.

Vettel ran close to Mercedes drivers Valtteri Bottas and Lewis Hamilton towards the closingꦇ stages of the race, sitting five seconds 📖off the race lead with nine laps to go.

But Vettel was forced to drop back late on, losing three-and-a-half seconds on race winner Bottas on the very last lap of ꦅthe race.

Binotto confirmed after the race that Vettel had been forced to save fuel late on after an unusual Baku race that🔯 did not feature a single Safety Car period.

“It’s true that he had to save some fuel at ♛the end of th꧅e race,” Binotto said.

“Normally over an entire rac✃e distance, there are times in the race when you need to manage your fuel to make sure that you conclude with what’s the limi𒁃t in the regulations.

“Simply he had to do it at the end. Maybe others did i𒈔t earlier or didn’t; we don’t ✃know yet.

“But yes, ♍as a matter of fact on the very last lap of the race, he did it.”

While Vettel had been able to draw close to the Mercedes drivers through the▨ second stint of the race, he struggled to keep up with either Bottas or Hamilton early on.

Ve♔ttel explained after the race that he had lacked grip on the Soft compound tyr൲e before becoming more comfortable once he switched to Mediums.

Binotto said Ferrari was yet to determine why Vettel had struggled so🐭 much at the beginning of the race.

“We d𝓀on’t k🅺now yet. I think it’s something which we need to analyse,” Binotto said.

“Certainly Seb was not comfortable on the first stint. He has been a lo🌳t more comfortable on the second, being quite strﷺong, a good pace on the medium tyres.

“It’s really now down to us to analyse all the data, but weܫ have no conclusion yet.”