Sebastian Vettel: No silver bullet for Ferrari with Spain upgrades

Sebastian Vettel

Vettel: No silver bullet for Ferrari with Spain upgrades

A new power unit is bolted onto the SF90

Matthew Scott

Thursday 9 May 2019 15:55 Updated: 16:15

Sebastian Vettel does not expect a return to the Circuit de Catalunya and a power unit upgrade to serve as a "silver bullet" in Ferrari's attempts to turn around their deficit to Mercedes in the Formula 1 standings. The Silver Arrows' four consecutive one-two finishes have helped open up a big gap between the title rivals.

Given Ferrari's strong performances in pre-season testing, this weekend's Spanish Grand Prix once again sees the Scuderia enter with many tipping them for success.

Due to a combination of poor set-up, bad luck and errant decision-making, Ferrari have failed to make good on similar billing at all four races this season.

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With steps being taken to turn things around, Vettel hopes for better but is not expecting any dramatic changes in Spain.

Vettel said: "The car was really good at testing, we arrived in Australia and struggled a little bit to feel the same.

"I think the first four races for us have been a little bit up and down. there were stretches where the car felt really good and other parts where the car hasn't, but deep down I think 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.

Vettel believes that if Ferrari are able to recapture the levels of performance they enjoyed in testing, then they may be able to put Mercedes to the sword once again.

"This weekend will be interesting for us because we had such a good feeling [in pre-season]," he added.

"It's not so long ago so I'm pretty sure I remember how the car felt and it will be interesting to see how it behaves the next couple of days.

"But I'm quite confident that if we can get to that level, then we should be very competitive. On top of that, we have some new stuff so let's see."