Sebastian Vettel believes the solution to Ferrari’s problems with its SF90 lies simply in adding more downforce to the car.
Team principal Mattia Binotto has said the concept behind their car may need to be reconsidered, though he believes the team’s unusual front wing concept is not the problem.After finishing second in the Monaco Grand Prix, the team’s best result so far this year, Vettel said his understanding of the car’s major shortcoming is that it needs to generate more downforce.
“The car’s [been] pretty similar the last couple of races. We had one race where performance was standing out and we were quite strong.
“I saw that Valtteri was faster but there was no way he was going to pass, as our straight line speed is really good. It’s just because overall we are lacking downforce, a weakness that we know.
“I don’t think the car is as bad as it looks. The results should be better here and there but it’s very difficult for us to get the car in the window where it is happy. Certainly when we get it in there we’re more competitive but still a way from where we want to be. That’s really the key lesson: we need to focus on trying to get the car, short-term, more in that window.”
Vettel moved into third place in the drivers’ championship in Monaco, but is 55 point behind leader Lewis Hamilton. He said Ferrari must make progress with its car in the coming rounds.
“Looking forward for the next three, four, five races, obviously make sure we improve the car, put more grip onto the car so that we can go faster, simple as that. But that guy seems to hide fairly well. I don’t know exactly where he is right now, so if you find him, or if you’ve got his number, that grip guy, but we’ve been looking for him for a while.
“I don’t think there are any secrets we will be able to unveil. As usual, attention to detail and a lot hard work is the only way to get us up.”
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ColdFly (@)
27th May 2019, 8:39
After finishing second in the Monaco Grand Prix, the team’s best result so far this year,
More ‘luckiest’ than ‘best’ result. Second was only due to the unsafe release by Red Bull which caused Bottas’ puncture and Verstappen’s penalty.
John
27th May 2019, 9:01
(@coldfly), Don’t over-stress their luck please, even your “best team” cashed in at Ferrari’s expense in Bahrain. Everybody does now and then, just leave Vettel alone.
MG1982 (@mg1982)
27th May 2019, 9:06
No doubt it was a lucky 2nd, but still he seemed to have no problem keeping up with the top3 until they decided to pit for the 1st time. So, partially deserved, he just capitalised on others errors. What I did not understand this race was how BOT managed to stop 2 times under SC and still be in top4!
Panagiotis Papatheodorou (@panagiotism-papatheodorou)
27th May 2019, 9:08
Vettel had built a gap of like 30 secs to Ricciardo before the SC.
Todfod (@todfod)
27th May 2019, 9:50
Agree. Vettel didn’t have a chance for a podium without lady luck’s interference. Luckily for him, his old team decided to ruin the race for both the cars in front of Sebastian.
dex
27th May 2019, 21:56
If Hamilton had ‘hard’ tyres fitted he would have finished the race well up the road. He would have maintained the gap at 10-15 secs.
Panagiotis Papatheodorou (@panagiotism-papatheodorou)
27th May 2019, 8:49
It’s true to be sure. Vettel was slower than midfield cars in the final sector. They were lucky to get that place due to Red Bull’s pit error.
Steven Robertson (@emu55)
27th May 2019, 9:24
It was a solid drive by vettel, he kept his head and let others make mistakes.
Todfod (@todfod)
27th May 2019, 9:54
@emu55
It was an absolutely mediocre performance from him. Average qualifying and was looking for an absolutely average race result before the two cars in front of him got unlucky, not because they made errors, but because Red Bull screwed up a pit stop release. He didn’t look to threaten Verstappen’s position at any point of time in the race… both before and after the pitstops. He lucked in to a P2, but really he didn’t even deserve a podium based on his performance all weekend. Hamilton, Bottas, Verstappen all looked much better than him in qualifying and raceday.
Pironi the Provocateur (@pironitheprovocateur)
27th May 2019, 11:06
This is a bit harsh, don’t you think? He crashed in the FP3 trying to get everything out of the car and after the poor Barcelona showing it was obvious that he couldn’t extract more than he did in qualifying. His race pace was actually quite decent and there was absolutely no point of trying to get close to Verstappen, that man is extremely hard to pass on the normal track, let alone twisty Monaco. He would only ruin his tyres as Verstappen did.
His race surely wasn’t worse than Hamilton’s, as HAM only profited from the pole position. Vettel gets slammed a great time but the people criticizing him should keep in mind that unlike Hamilton, he hasn’t had a superior machinery with any problem whatsoever since last year’s Singapore. That makes quite a difference.
Rockie (@rockie)
27th May 2019, 12:38
@pironitheprovocateur
He his still angry at the loss his mentor suffered against Vettel, his profile picture tells you all you need to know as he is so biased against Vettel it is unreal.
No one in the top top 4 overtook anybody on track but no Vettel is the only mediocre one for not overtaking.
Todfod (@todfod)
27th May 2019, 16:51
@rockie
That’s cute coming from a Vettel fan who’s dreams have been shattered because he’s realised that his idol is mediocre.
Todfod (@todfod)
27th May 2019, 16:54
@pironitheprovocateur
Honestly.. I don’t think I’m being harsh. Let’s see how his weekend panned out … He binned it in FP3. His qualifying wasn’t particularly good considering he qualified only 0.15s in front of F1.5 teams. He didn’t look threatening to Verstappen at any point in the race before the pit stop… and despite being held up by the Lewis train, he didn’t even look close to making an overtake on Verstappen for the entire race.
He lucked in to P2. I don’t see any highlights whatsoever … unless you say keeping Bottas behind him was a commendable task.
Panagiotis Papatheodorou (@panagiotism-papatheodorou)
27th May 2019, 11:39
Vettel knew there was no way he could pass Max. He weighed his chances and waited for a mistake or a crash or something. He almost got it three laps before the end. He knew had P2 secure due to Max’s penalty and waited for a possible win.
Rockie (@rockie)
27th May 2019, 12:35
@panagiotism-papatheodorou
He had overheating problems all race hence he had to drop back to cool the car.
anon
27th May 2019, 12:28
@todfod, to be fair to Vettel, he couldn’t really get himself into a position to try and pressurise Verstappen due to the powertrain overheating issues that they’ve had this season.
As soon as he began to close up the gap on Verstappen, his engine temperatures started rising fairly rapidly and he had to back off – as Panagiotis Papatheodorou notes, he did the only thing which he could do in that situation, which was to try and stay close enough to Verstappen to capitalise on any error by him, whilst maintaining just enough of a gap to keep his engine temperature under control.
Todfod (@todfod)
27th May 2019, 16:57
@anon
There were times he had to back off… but the Lewis train was making the front runners go 2 seconds a lap slower than they were supposed to be doing. He was constantly on Verstappen’s tail, but didn’t look threatening for an entire race distance. How is that anything to commend?
Panagiotis Papatheodorou (@panagiotism-papatheodorou)
27th May 2019, 17:24
@todfod He had overheating issues man. Max couldn’t overtake Lewis who was struggling, how could Seb reach Max and overtake just like that? Vettel knew that P2 was secured and waited for a mistake to capitalize. It never came but got a good result.
You speak as if Vettel was just playing around the whole race. Not even Max felt threatening for most of the race. It was Lewis whining to the radio every 5 secs that built the tension.
Robbie (@robbie)
27th May 2019, 21:41
Let’s not forget SV’s point as stated in the heading for this topic…Ferrari is lacking grip. And once that is the case, and you’re playing catch-up and follow the leader, risks have to be taken, and pushing can result in ragged driving and, for example, brushes with walls such as SV experienced.
Dave
28th May 2019, 12:15
It’s Monaco, of course no one could pass anyone else. That’s why Hamilton won despite being on the wrong tyres.
What’s more, Vettel knew Max had a penalty, so why try to pass him? If Hamilton stopped, Vettel would win, and if he didn’t, Vettel had second and no chance of the win. It would have been an idiotic mistake to take major risks with zero potential benefit.
Asanator (@asanator)
27th May 2019, 9:27
No, they weren’t lucky….if Verstappen had been held as he should have been he would have come out behind Vettel anyway who was immediately behind Bottas inthe pit lane.
Gabriel (@rethla)
27th May 2019, 11:45
But Bottas wouldnt be behind Vettel without an extra pitstop….
Also it serves Mercedes right with their disrespect of the safetycar.
Stephen Crowsen (@drycrust)
27th May 2019, 10:03
My suspicion is Ferrari have squandered more points than they lost because of better competitors. Here we have a case where their (arguably) best driver was sent home too early in Qualifying. It is hard to know whether his “banzai” approach was with Ferrari’s blessing, but ultimately it failed. Again we come back to the question of “If you set up someone to fail and they fail … is that their fault?”
As far as I can tell Ferrari didn’t want Charles near the front of the race at the finish, so I guess they were happy with the result.
Phylyp (@phylyp)
27th May 2019, 11:26
Here ya go, Vettel: 0118 999 881 999 119 7253
That’s 0118 999 881 999 119 7253
Joao (@johnmilk)
27th May 2019, 16:49
you have to give them the melody, otherwise they won’t memorize it @phylyp
Its:
O One One Eight NineNineNine EightEight One NineNine NineOneOne Niine Seven,Two,Five Three
Joao (@johnmilk)
27th May 2019, 16:50
there should be a bit more space between Five and Three, but formatting eliminated it. Isn’t it enough we don’t have an edit button?
Phylyp (@phylyp)
27th May 2019, 17:34
@johnmilk – LOL
We should stick a note before the three… Seven Two Five… 🎵 Three
Gabriel (@rethla)
27th May 2019, 11:43
Vettel should have backed Bottas out of the podium.
DaveW (@dmw)
27th May 2019, 13:44
interesting idea. But he would have had to not lose second as well and that would be tight.
Dave
28th May 2019, 12:21
I know it’s almost impossible to pass, but I think Hamilton was driving just about as slowly as it’s possible to go without being passed. It may have been impossible for Vettel to go even slower and not give an easy pass somewhere.
It’s also a big ask for Vettel to time it just right so that he’s within five seconds and Bottas isn’t, with Bottas only about 0.5s behind him.
Jay Menon (@jaymenon10)
28th May 2019, 1:53
I’m inclined to believe Seb when he says “the car isn’t as bad as it looks”.
However, the team is a lot worse than it looks, and certainly, it’s number one driver has been off the mark on too many occasions. Cast your minds back to around 2012/2013 when Alonso said of Vettel something along the lines of “these titles will hurt him later”. This was in reference the fact that his dominance was underlined by the sheer superiority of his car. I also remember that Alonso got bagged for those comments. Sure, not a great thing to say, but perhaps there is some truth to it? The truth always hurts, and sometimes it can sting and burn.
Ferrari have been average at best since 2008. Whatever you want to call the Alonso era at Ferrari, it was not a marque of team that had its act together. In the last decade, the closest they have come to a well oil machine was last year, and they should have won it .It was really a case of snatching defeat from the jaws of victory. Perhaps that’s an overstatement, but the fact remains that they were easily on par with Merc, if not quicker on various tracks last year. This year, its been a comedy of errors, and it seems to be going from bad to worse.
For the record, I am not a Ferrari fan. But I’m a fan of F1 and racing in general. The only team that can give Merc a challenge is Ferrari, the only hope we have of decent competition. Unless RB can coax some significant power out of the Honda PU that is.