Sebastian Vettel is confident Ferrari can find further performance from their SF71-H despite setting a roaring pace in practice at the Bahrain GP.
Though it was teammate Kimi Raikkonen who topped the timesheet, the German was arguably the fastest man on Friday finishing just 0.011s behind as the two Scuderia drivers were the only men to lap under 1m30s.
Vettel’s long run to close out the evening session under the lights was particularly impressive though and the four-time world champion was generally satisfied with how his day went.
“[It] looks like we were a bit quicker than the rest but it depends a bit on the programme so at this point I would not jump in any conclusions,” he commented.
“We’re focusing on ourselves, on the set-up mostly and try to get a better feel which at times was good, other times was not yet there.”
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When it has mattered so far this season, it has been Raikkonen that has had the edge over Vettel with the current characteristics of the Ferrari better suiting the Finn’s driving style and addressing that has been the 30-year-old’s main goal.
“We tried some stuff today, mostly trying to fix the front end because it hasn’t been very strong in Australia and it got a bit better so let’s see where we are tomorrow,” he said.
“We can still improve for both short and long runs. I didn’t see what the others did. My long run I think was okay, it should have been a bit stronger but as I said we try different things with the car and the balance.”
