Sebastian Vettel is confident Ferrari will battle for the win at the Spanish Grand Prix.
The Italian team is bringing every bit of performance they can find with a new engine this weekend in addition to the upgrades all teams typically bring to Barcelona.
This as Ferrari try to end Mercedes’ dominant start to 2019, although Vettel admits that won’t happen immediately.
“The car was really good in testing, we arrived in Australia and struggled a little bit to feel the same,” the German said in Thursday’s press conference.
“The first four races have been up and down but deep down, we know the car is strong, so we’re trying to put the bits together and try and understand.
“We haven’t found the silver bullet, but in the last 10 years, I never found a silver bullet so I don’t think it exists.
“It’s really getting down to the detail, trying to understand more and more, trying to understand the conditions that we face and trying to obviously improve and make sure it doesn’t happen again.”
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What makes Ferrari’s lack of success this season so surprising is the performance they showed in Barcelona during the winter, often appearing to be in a class of their own.
Of course, testing is never a truly accurate indicator of the relative performance, but Vettel does think if that pace can be repeated then the Scuderia has a strong chance.
“This weekend will be interesting for us because we had a good feeling here not so long ago so it will be interesting to see how it behaves this weekend,” he commented.
“I’m confident if we can get to the level, we will be very competitive.”