Sebastian Vettel says overwhelming support from Formula 1 fans gaꦗve him a much-needed lift to claim his first victory in over a year at the S꧑ingapore Grand Prix.

Vettel undercut Ferrari teammate and polesitter Charles Leclerc having pitted one lap earlier, before goingඣ on to score his first win since the 2018 Belgian Grand Prix and fifth career vict𝓡ory in Singapore.

It followed up on a tough recent patch of form for Vettel and a nightmare race on Ferrari’s ho꧒me soil at Monza, where the German 💜spun out of fourth place before collecting a penalty for colliding with Racing Point driver Lance Stroll as he rejoined the circuit.

Speaking immediately after the race, Vettel revealed support from fans had provided him with “so much strength” and self-beliꦬef.

𒁃“I really w🔯ant to thank the fans and obviously the last couple of weeks for me have been, not the best, but it’s been incredible to get so much support so many letters so many nice messages,” he said.

“People telliಞng their own stories where things didn’t go so well so it’s given me so much str🌳ength and belief and I tried to put it all into the car and it’s nice when it pays off.”

In the drivers’ post-race press conference, Vettel adde💖d: “I got a lot of energy in the last couple of weeks just from messages that I received꧃ from the racing world, from people that I know from a long time ago, especially fans.

“After Monza, and then coming here, people sharing their own story of wh⭕en things are up and then things go down, which obviouಞsly for us, everything is entered around racing, but it really is not the most important thing.

“You read through some of the notes and people’s struggles in life, some very intimate🦂 and private, it gets to you, and it gave me a lot o𒁏f belief and confidence to just keep trying.

“Nothing was wrong in🌳 the last couple of weeks, I knew that we weren’t really far away from a breakthrough.

“Charles has been very strong, and was right to win the last two races, but I knew as ꦉwell on ou꧋r side we just need to keep doing our job and sooner or later, things will fall into place.

“I’m happy that it was sooner rather than later.”

Following back-to-back title defeat🎃s against Lewis Hamilton in 2017 and 2018 and a 12-month period litteℱred by a number of notable driver errors, Vettel had faced questions about whether he might walk away from the sport at the end of the year.

Asked whether he feels satisfied to hit back and answer his critics, Vettel repl🌺ied: “Maybe less satisfying than you think. As I said about f🐻orm and stuff, I don’t think there was anything wrong.

“I don’t think🌠 we were lacking speed or anything. I think I could have done a better job yesterday, recentꦏly there was nothing wrong in general.

“Things were maybe not falling into place, plus I messed up in the racei n Monza, that’s my mistake otherwise, it’s a long race and rthings can happen. Overall, it’s part of the game I think.

“I’ve been around now for a long, long time, and it’s just how the tide turns sometimes. I have the highest expectations for myself, and I’m not happy when I’m not delivering what I know I can.

“Certainly I had moments this year where I was struggling to get it out, so I know that I can improve from there, I can’t be happy with that. Equally it wasn’t as bad or disastrous as maybe people put it together.

“But I think if you’ve been around for such a long time and you’ve had so many good moments, obviously you get hammered when there are bad mo♐ments. It✱’s just part of the game.”