Sebastian Vettel says Ferrari’s strong start to the 2019 F1 season will not be derailed by its troubles in the first two days of the second test.
The team lost time investigating a technical problem on Tuesday and Vettel suffered a crash on Wednesday which wiped out most of their day. However he said the mood within the team remains good.“Right now obviously the first week’s been good,” Vettel said on Wednesday. “Yesterday we lost a bit of time as well as today. So not ideal but overall I would say that you know the feeling is is positive, the atmosphere is good, the people are happy. So I think we have something to build on.”
Vettel and Ferrari have finished runner-up in the championships for the last two seasons. He is certain the team has everything in place to deliver the championship this year.
“Right now we are sitting here in February, a long road ahead and a lot of races are challenges that will come up. Even if you find yourself in a good position now or not so good position now it’s still a long way and a lot of time.
“We have a strong group of people now that came up with last year’s car, with the car before that, with this year’s car again and from there we need to make sure we improve it. So that will be the key. The key will be to have the speed, race one and race 21. That will be the key, I think the rest will come.”
“We have all the ingredients,” Vettel added. “Sure, some stages in previous years we did our things as well and maybe we didn’t put things a hundred percent together. There’s always room for improvement.”
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formevic (@formevic)
28th February 2019, 7:20
“There’s always room for improvement, yes, mainly for us drivers.” Statement should have been..
JohnH (@johnrkh)
28th February 2019, 8:30
I’m not a fan of Vettel, but wasn’t this a mechanical failure?
Keith Collantine (@keithcollantine)
28th February 2019, 8:33
Yes, according to the team.
Fons (@fons)
28th February 2019, 8:55
Do you disagree?
jhg103 (@joshgeake)
28th February 2019, 9:21
in fairness it would be pretty weird for Vettel to just drift wide. His mistakes are all about pressure and being around other drivers rather than random lapses like this.
Fons (@fons)
28th February 2019, 9:28
Ferrari says, after an examination, a broken rim caused the crash.
hamiledon
28th February 2019, 11:12
Another way to say we could not find anything wrong with the car. I dont understand why they did not sign a contract with Ricciardo last year. Insisting on finished Vettel while Ricciardo was available, is as weird as this rim excuse. In short, Ferrari is not well manage & they will win nothing as long as this management mind set goes on.
Fons (@fons)
28th February 2019, 11:19
At least it’s a better excuse than the “rosberg’s mechanics sabotaged me”…
hamiledon
28th February 2019, 11:25
that’s true
Panagiotis Papatheodorou (@panagiotism-papatheodorou)
28th February 2019, 11:18
This was a mechanical failure, haven’t you seen any footage of the accident? There were spark flying from the broken suspension pal. No mistake.
Nikki (@nikkit)
28th February 2019, 12:51
I seem to remember him saying similar things after Singapore 2017 and Germany 2018, so it’s all downhill from here for Ferrari and much earlier this year too.
In seriousness though. This is what testing is for, to get these problems out the way. Mercedes will have looked colosely at the oil system following Botta’s oil pressure problems the other day. Hass will have closely examined ther cause of their failures in the earlier sessions and Ferrari with have worked to solve the cause of yesterdays failure (I don’t be the piece of debris damaged the rim claim. I’m more inclined to think suspension failure)
Heck, how much sooner would the Red Bull/Renault relationship have soured had the cars been catching fire Austrailia weekend rather than in the first round of tests in 2014?