Vettel senses progress after first day in new Ferrari despite “very cold” track

[smr2018test]

Sebastian Vettel said he feels Ferrari have made progress with their new car despite the cold weather which made for challenging conditions in today’s test.

The four-times world champion set the quickest time during today’s test but said the team’s mileage was more significant.

“But it’s very difficult to get the tyres to work. I think everybody is struggling with the same issues. It’s only three, four degrees, the asphalt is 10 degrees. So it’s very, very cold. Not the conditions we normally run.”

Vettel said the early signs were positive after his first full day in the SF71H. “I think the car is working, we didn’t have any problems reliability-wise, everything was making sense,” he said.

“It seems we have made a step forward in terms of performance, I don’t know yet but in terms of general operation everything’s really smooth. It’s good to come here, switch on the car and be able to run. Obviously the limiting factor is the weather.”

However Vettel was reluctant to draw early comparisons with the opposition and is pinning his hopes on better conditions arriving next week. “It’s very difficult to say at this point [where we are]: First of all it’s much cooler than last year. Second, the asphalt is completely different. So there are too many major things that make it impossible to compare at this point.”

“For sure you look at the others, you compare a bit, but it’s very difficult,” he added. “I think we should not get into detail too much because it’s a bit pointless. I think the next two days aren’t going to be much better. But I hope next week we’ll know more.”

Ferrari will conduct a filming day at the track on Saturday by which time the conditions are expected to have improved.

2018 F1 season

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• Honda’s jet division helped F1 engineers solve power unit problem
• McLaren Racing losses rise after Honda split
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