Sebastian Vettel: Ferrari not faster than Mercedes

Sebastian Vettel

Vettel: Ferrari not faster than Mercedes

Despite a one-two in FP2?

Matthew Scott

Saturday 8 June 2019 09:35

Sebastian Vettel says Ferrari are not the quickest team at the Canadian Grand Prix, despite Charles Leclerc leading him in a tight one-two finish at the end of Friday practice in Montreal. Ferrari appeared to make good on suggestions that they could take the fight to Mercedes, but Vettel sees it differently.

Lewis Hamilton was a second clear of the red cars in FP1, but the championship leader missed most of FP2 after hitting the wall out of Turn 9.

It left room for Ferrari to get the better of Valtteri Bottas, although the Finn was in close quarters behind Leclerc and Vettel – all three separated by a tenth.

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Although the SF90's powerful engine had been expected to be more of a difference maker at the power-hungry Circuit Gilles Villeneuve, Vettel believes Ferrari are still lacking.

"It was quite slippery to start with but the track will improve the whole weekend so the key will be to just go with the track," he said.

"We're not the fastest. I know if you look at the results, at the one lap performance, it looks like that today. But there's still quite a reasonable gap to Mercedes.

"It wasn't a great day in terms of tyres, they didn't last very long but we'll see what we can do.

"We'll see what happens in qualifying and the strategy that everyone picks for the race. Overall it wasn't that bad, but we certainly need to improve if we want to put the car in a good position for the race."

Pinpointing where Ferrari suffer a deficit, Vettel added: "Corners, just like the other races.

"It was not the most transparent session with people running into problems, but the car feels not yet the way I want it. We have some stuff that we want to try."