Sebastian Vettel still can’t find the right “feeling” in his Ferrari after a tricky Spanish Grand Prix Friday.
The German finished just behind teammate Charles Leclerc in fourth fastest in the second session, as the Italian team sat three-tenths off the pace set by Mercedes.
This despite a raft of upgrades which Ferrari has brought to Barcelona, although Vettel is confident they are performing as expected.
“Engine-wise we are happy, obviously, it’s Friday so it’s difficult to know what we are doing compared to other people,” he said.
“Car-wise we put everything on that we expected to put on the car. Feeling-wise, it has been a different story and I think it’s a fair picture that we haven’t been the quickest today.”
The main weakness for Ferrari was in the final sector, a technical sequence of slow corners which put a lot of emphasis on traction and mechanical grip.
“We have to [improve],” Vettel stated. “It’s not the first time this year that we are losing in these sort of corners.
“If it was easy we would just fix it but currently, we are all working very hard and trying still to just understand why we are losing out in these types of corners, sometimes more than other times.”
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Across the garage, Leclerc is more upbeat, believing the pace can be extracted from the car as they understand the upgrades.
“At the moment the balance is a bit out but this is something that can be fixed and also things that are not unnormal when you put new things on the car,” he commented.
“It’s normal that it takes a bit of time to understand them and then once we put all of them together and the balance is good then we will see how they perform.”
As for whether Ferrari can improve enough to stop Mercedes, the Monegasque replied: “That’s what we are here for.
“We are trying to give everything, try and to make the balance right for tomorrow and then hopefully improve for qualifying.”
