Sebastian Vettel, Ferrari, Spa-Francorchamps, 2018

Vettel says his Ferrari “seems to work everywhere” now

2018 Belgian Grand Prix

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Ferrari has successfully addressed its car’s weaknesses and can expect to be competitive on a range of tracks, according to Sebastian Vettel.

“We have a good car that seems to work everywhere,” said the Belgian Grand Prix winner, who said the team has made progress with its SF71-H since the season began.

“I don’t think the car was there right from the beginning. I think we got it now to a point where it seems to work everywhere and we are competitive.”

Ferrari’s rivals have praised the car’s power unit, as the team appears to have overturned Mercedes’ advantage in outright engine power it has enjoyed since the current engine rules arrived in 2014.

“I think it’s a huge compliment if people praise our engine because the last five years people didn’t praise anything else but the Mercedes engine,” he said. “So it’s good to have that change and I think it makes Maranello and the engine department very, very happy.

“Everybody involved can be very proud and I think the key is not only that, the key is teamwork. the car is working in all sorts of tracks, is efficient and I think that’s the key to bring everything together.”

The team’s 2017 car had “deficits” in certain areas, Vettel admitted.

“We had a car that worked really well on twisty tracks where a lot of downforce was required but we were missing out on tracks where the car needs to be more efficient like here, like Silverstone usually and a couple of other tracks.

“So I think this year the car seems to be more robust in that regard and seems to work everywhere. Needless to say that we improved the package as well, power unit, so on all fronts I think we’ve done a step forward. It is a key to have a car that works everywhere because that’s been our weakness and I think we tackled it well.”

Josh Holland contributed to this article.

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58 comments on “Vettel says his Ferrari “seems to work everywhere” now”

  1. Vettel talks up his equipment to improve morale at the factory, to help the Ferrari brand.

    Hamilton denigrates his equipment in order to make his performances seem more impressive than what they are.

    1. @anon
      Comment of the month!

    2. Its a lose-lose for Mercedes here. It does seem like Vettels input into the development of the Ferrari has really helped where as Mercedes losing the input from Rosberg has hindered them.

      1. It’s a shame that he left the team because knew he couldn’t defend his championship.

      2. @Alex don’t start this nonsense about Rosberg and input, where was his input from 2010 till 2012 where they got lapped every race. Nothing is Vettel’s input. That car is not legal but the FIA helping out Ferrari as Bernie Ecclestone has explain already

        1. Actually the car is legal because if it were illegal it would be illegal but its not illegal therefore it is legal.

          1. Mehow:
            The law of whom?
            The law of what?
            There is no law.
            Only the law of the strongest,Ruthlest;cheatiest,maybe!!!

          2. Mehow, answering a baseless conspiracy accusation with circular reasoning doesn’t really work..

        2. @noname Don’t know if it’s nonsense or not, but Mercedes did improve from 2010 through to 2013, to the point they won their first race in 2012 with non other than Rosberg in China, and won 3 races the following year. So your “lapped” remark is wide off the mark. What you could have said is that Schumacher also played a role in the development of the cars and share the credit between him and Rosberg, if what you really want is to downplay Rosberg’s capabilities.

          1. @toiago Do you even know how Rosberg got that pole ?. Hamilton was on course for pole but the team told him to abord his lap and what exactly was Rosberg’s input ? What progress did they made from 2010 till 2012 ? Sudden Hamilton joins Mercedes and you think it’s Rosberg right ?, clown. Hamilton’s input made the car faster hence Mercedes build a new state of the art simulator Hamilton had to work in at the end of 2012 cause he drove the good MP4-27 and his job was to bring the W04 as close to the MP4-27. The seat position was changed from upright to a more laying position which McLaren had which cuased way less rear tyre issues, the brake biases where brought back drom 6 to 3. Simplification of the steering wheel. Now tell me Rosberg’s input..

          2. @noname I shouldn’t be answering you because of your tone, but I’ll give it a go since you don’t seem to know what you’re talking about.

            “What progress did they made from 2010 till 2012 ?” – They went from 4th/5th best team to race winners. To me that’s progress. They still weren’t championship contenders, but were clearly trending upwards. They would even win 3 races the following year, Rosberg taking 2 and Hamilton the other 1.

            “Hamilton’s input made the car faster” – Since Hamilton joined just for the 2013 season, how could he possibly have been decisive for that year’s car? With just a couple of months on the team? Does it really make sense? He would have needed to be on the simulator 24/7 from the moment he signed the contract until the first test, which is not possible, at all.

            ” McLaren had which cuased way less rear tire issues” – This is the best one. If I remember correctly, Mercedes were mighty fast in qualifying in the 2013 season. However, come race day, they could never keep up with the other teams because they chewed through their tires like nobody else. I read the other day that this problem was solved only when none other than Paddy Lowe joined the team and made the changes necessary to the car to ensure they coped much better with the tires. It makes more sense than single out Hamilton’s contribution, since it was from 2014 onward, not 2013, that Mercedes improved their tire management. At that point he could have already had an influence over that, since he was with a team for a full year, but it definitely wasn’t just because of him.

            So there you go, a bit of enlightenment. It’s really not possible to quantify how much a driver contributes to the development of the cars, it’s only subjective and we certainly from the comfort of our homes can’t really judge it. We only have the perception based on the comments by people who actually work with the drivers – and even those would have a hard time saying how much a driver’s input contributed to the successes of a team. There are simply too many factors at play to simplify it and say that only the driver is responsible for this or that. It’s much less intelligent to credit one of the drivers for 100% of the good work and give only trash to the other one, which is exactly what you are doing so blatantly and ignorantly.

        3. Oh, and I even forgot Schmacher’s stunning pole in Monaco in 2012. Such a shame he had that 5 place grid penalty. What a huge moment it would have been if he’d won that race.

        4. @noname at least share with us why you are so certain of that affirmation

        5. Hahahahaha. Absolutely priceless! A comment Alex Jones would be proud of :D

    3. Vettel talks up his equipment to improve morale at the factory, to help the Ferrari brand

      Except in previous seasons where the car wasn’t the best and he talked it down

      Hamilton denigrates his equipment in order to make his performances seem more impressive than what they are.

      Except all the hundreds of times he didn’t do that?

      Almost like you have no idea what you are talking about 🤔

      1. You have no idea what your talking about.. lol Austria 2018 vs Suzuka 2017.. that’s only one example on who’s the one pulling the guns on his own team

    4. Vettel talks up his equipment to improve morale at the factory, to help the Ferrari brand.

      Yeah.. He better. He’s the one underperforming in Ferrari right now.. Not the rest of the factory.

      1. Underperforming @todfod? Really? Shine your bi-focals a bit better.

        1. Hockenheimring, anyone?

        2. hungary and germany where he had the fastest car and could not with both was what? a bad dream?
          Grow up.

        3. @sjzelli

          Well… Let’s see… He’s had the best car for the opening 13 races, and lesser reliability problems than his championship contenders, yet he finds himself trailing in championship. What would you call that exactly? Outperforming?

          1. @todfod These new Vettel fans can’t tell you why they support Vettel or what race convinced them lol, they think they know it all. These Vettel fans are the No1 fakest F1 fans, look at the official F1 IG page how they toxicate the comment section always moaning about Hamilton despite Hamilton is mentioned nowhere. They are pathetic AF

  2. So now Vettel needs to not make more mistakes.

  3. Head down. Keep pushing.

    1. Please do, a 17 point gap is not too much yet

      We don’t need another Hockenheim-like brain fade though

      1. Absolutely. We have a good chance this year, as long as we keep concentrating and working hard!

      2. Vettel is mentally the strongest f1 driver.
        That is the fact.
        Avanti, forza Ferrari!

  4. Vettel has to deliver the pressure is mounting on his shoulders. That’s why he make mistakes and is conservative at wet qualifying session. Hamilton has 3 wdc’s the last 4 years and now after Ferrari being slightly ahead the last 2 months is already playing the hero driver card taking a leaf out of Alonso’s playbook.

    There are 2 certainties for 2019. If Hamilton wins this year, Vettel will need an even bigger pace advantage to prevail. If Vettel does win in 2018 with the current advantage will wipe the floor with Hamilton in 2019.

    So for the sake of the sport let’s hope Vettel wins this year and next year they have equally fast cars.

    1. to be fair, it has been pretty equal this season, with Mercedes and Ferrari having the slight advantage in more or less even amounts of races.

      this could change, if ferrari is stronger for the remainder of the season. but up to now it has been pretty equal, and where it not for the small, but very significant Vettel mistake at Hockenheim, he would be leading the standings by 15 points.

    2. Vettel’s made less mistakes than Hammy in 2016.

      1. @anon What mistake did Hamilton made in 2016 cause the first four races where due clutch issues besides Monza and Japan. So tell me what mistake Hamilton made.

        1. Off the top of my head he bottled 7 starts, dropped his lip in Shanghai, crashed in Baku qualifying, took out his teammate in Spain (interesting tactics…).

          1. Bruno von Niman
            27th August 2018, 22:05

            You forcot he even crashed his own Zonda…

          2. @anon I already told you that the first four races Hamilton had clutch issues and Hamilton only had a poor start in Japan and Monza. And in Spain it was Rosberg who crashed in Hamilton and Baku was a small error.

      2. @anon

        Lmao!

        Did you watch 2016? Vettel was rubbish that year. He threw a tantrum and crashed out at every 2nd race. He was outscored by Raikonnen in the 2nd half of the season, and would have been outscored by Kimi at the end of the year if it wasn’t for a few mechanical issues.

        Ferrari’s president openly said that Vettel needed to up his game.

        Hamilton on the other hand lost a championship to Rosberg mostly because of mechanical failures. (we’ve all done the points tally before and know it’s true).

        1. Hammy had one mechanical failure in a race.

          He bottled 7 starts. If he simply didn’t mess up one of those 7 starts he wins the championship.

          He blew it. He was sloppy.

          He was lucky that he was in a car 1.5 seconds better than the field, so was guaranteed second place no matter how bad he performed at the start, in qualifying or on the day.

          1. Hammy had one mechanical failure in a race.

            He had also had a lot of issues on Saturdays which made him start further back on the grid. Sure, he did bomb a lot of starts, especially in the 1st half of the season. Still, it’s hard to argue that he wasn’t the better Mercedes driver that year.

            The reply to your comment was regarding Vettel performing better than Hamilton in 2016. Maybe you need to recap the 2016 season. Vettel had 2 podiums in the last 12 races and would have been outscored by Kimi if it wasn’t for Kimi’s retirements in USA and Brazil.

            Yet, for some mystical reason you believe Vettel was better than Hamilton that year.

    3. Hamilton has 3 wdc’s the last 4 years and now after Ferrari being slightly ahead the last 2 months is already playing the hero driver card taking a leaf out of Alonso’s playbook.

      @philby This! +10000000000.

    4. @philby LMAO Alonso’s book. You mean the dude that messed up his own chances of winning a WDC in 2010 and 2012 ? in 2012 he even had a lucky 43 points lead after the summer break and still managed to lose it so don’t even mention Alonso.

      1. @Noname in 2010 and especially in 2012 Alonso should be applauded for putting up a proper title fight down to the wire with such an inferior car to Vettel. This year’s Mercedes is still a great car and has been the class of the field at numerous races. Alonso never enjoyed such advantage in his Ferrari heyday. The fact that He had 4 poles in almost 100 races and 2 of them in the wet speaks volumes about the lack of speed in his Ferrari. One could also argue that the Singapore 2010 pole was a fantastic lap where Red bulls bottled it.
        Also about Hamilton in 2007 he lost 17 points with the old points the equivalent of 42 points in just 2 races.

        1. USA 2012, Massa outqualified Alonso. So Ferrari proceeded to break Massa’s gearbox seal to demote him 5 places and move Alonso up one spot.

          Abu Dhabi 2012, Kimi in the Lotus beats Alonso who was in the faster Ferrari. Alonso failed to get the most of the car, cost him the championship.

          1. You are right but pigeonhole a driver like this gets you nowhere. Thing is i don’t really care about the drivers i just wanna see ferrari win!

          2. anon That Lotus was faster than the Ferrari. Alonso would have won the title in that car.

        2. “Kim Philby (@philby)”Hamilton in 2007 :his VERY FIRST year in F1 .”A rookie” and he is still listed in the 2007 F1 Championship book as # 2 behind Kimi raikonen champion that year and IN FRONT of Fernando Alonso the driver of the century.
          So to calm all the horses and for the record books:
          2007 F1 Drivers championship FINAL results:
          #1 KIMI RAIKONEN Ferrari CHAMPION
          #2 LEWIS HAMILTON VICE CHAMPION “Rookie” several wins and several podiums in 1st year in F1.Mc Laren
          #3 Fernando Alonso driver of the century in the very same car and the very same year as Hamilton MClaren 2007
          Now your own conclusions.!!!!

  5. doesn’t work in the rain though

    1. The cars problems in the wet are confined to the guy holding the steering wheel :)

      1. Are you tenderly holding a Lewis’ steering wheel replica right now?

    2. @johmilk lol, good one!

      1. @johnmilk. Damn, my keyboard is down on battery, sorry.

  6. A rocket ship can’t save Vettel from the inevitable. Hamilton is in a different class.

    1. Heard it before, about some guy whose name was Nico Rosberg…

      1. @hyoko Rosberg did not exaclty beat Hamilton on his own merrit didn’t hey ? Lol. Don’t even mention 2016.

    2. @david-beau Why keep the championship running then? :)

  7. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zp2Sl1OBoe0 Why don’t you… take me there? With you I’d go, anywhere… Everywhere…

  8. Too bad Kimi don’t work everywhere!

  9. This makes for a very interesting end to the season. Vettel in a better car vs Hamilton who I believe it marginally the better driver and makes fewer errors. Vettel is very hard to catch once he gets ahead and Lewis thrives under pressure. I feel like Kimi’s performance could settle which way the championship goes.

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