Sebastian Vettel has not been drawn on what the future might hold for him past the end of his current contract with Aston Martin.

The German driver will start this afternoon's Sprint inside the top ten, with him reaching Q3 in qualifying for the first time this season on Friday afternoon at Imola.

Indeed, it's also the first time that an Aston Martin car has finished inside the top ten at all this year in qualifying, and they'll now be looking to try and convert that into some decent points this season.

There's no denying that it's been a tough campaign so far for Aston and, with Vettel's contract expiring at the end of this year, he was asked about his future.

Suitably, though, he kept pretty coy:

“My contract ends at the end of this season. Obviously it’s not the year everyone in the team had hoped for, at least not the start of the season, but I think it would be bad to write it off already.

“One day there will be a day for all of us when this journey ends and some other journey will start, whatever that might be.

IMOLA, ITALY - APRIL 22: Sebastian Vettel of Germany driving the (5) Aston Martin AMR22 Mercedes on track during qualifying ahead of the F1 Grand Prix of Emilia Romagna at Autodromo Enzo e Dino Ferrari on April 22, 2022 in Imola, Italy. (Photo by Mark Thompson/Getty Images)

“In all honesty, I had an amazing 15 years or so, looking back, and I was in a position to win championships, win a lot of races, fight for pole positions, get a lot of podiums and obviously the taste was great.

“It’s not a secret that if you are not in a position to be there that it’s a different taste."

An interesting set of comments from Seb, and he'll just be hoping for an upturn in form at Aston Martin in the near future after a difficult start to the 2022 campaign - at least qualifying on Friday offered a glimmer of that as he finished in Q3.