Sebastian Vettel said he’s surprised by the scale of Mercedes’ advantage in qualifying for the Australian Grand Prix.
The Ferrari driver qualified third behind the two Mercedes today, seven-tenths of a second slower than Lewis Hamilton’s pole position time.Vettel said the car’s lack of pace stemmed from more than a simple lack of grip.
“I wouldn’t say that we have a problem extracting the grip from the tyres,” he said. “Obviously there is a lack somewhere because we are too slow. But it didn’t feel like it.”
Ferrari’s deficit is “fairly evenly spread around the lap but more towards the lower-speed corners”, Vettel believes. “It’s easier to lose time there but given the gap is so big we must lose time in more than one place, for sure.”
“I don’t think the straight-line [speed] is a problem,” he added, “I think we are quite competitive down the straights, we are just losing in the corners.
“There’s 16 corners around here and I think it’s a fairly even spread so probably by the looks of it so far it was more the medium and lower-speed stuff rather than the high-speed stuff which speaks for a strong car in general. I haven’t got the balance yet that I’d like to have especially in lower speed and the confidence and trust which again around here and make a big difference.”
[mpuzweeler01]Vettel said he didn’t expect Mercedes to be so far ahead and suspects his rivals didn’t either.
“I’m certainly surprised,” he said. “I think everybody is, probably even themselves.
“I think yesterday we didn’t have a good day. Today felt better. But in terms of gap and pace it was very similar. So for sure there’s some homework for us to do to understand.
“I still think we have a great car and we should be better than this. I’m looking forward to tomorrow. We’ll see over 58 laps, we have some time to get a proper read of where we are.
“But certainly Mercedes are the clear favourite. If you have such a big gap and comfort throughout the sessions then we’ve got to live with it today. But as I said tomorrow’s a new day. We’ve done it before around here especially so we’ll see.”
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Ninjenius (@ninjenius)
16th March 2019, 9:02
It’s nothing new at this circuit, to be fair. Merc have always been strong at circuits with similar characteristics (i.e. Sochi, Budapest).
Jere (@jerejj)
16th March 2019, 9:49
@ninjenius Not in Hungary in 2017, though.
Ninjenius (@ninjenius)
16th March 2019, 10:05
@jerejj True! And to be fair if it wasn’t for rain in last year’s quali it would likely have been a Ferrari pole then too.
Jere (@jerejj)
16th March 2019, 12:49
@ninjenius Yes indeed. Last year Merc just got lucky with the weather playing into their hands.
Panagiotis Papatheodorou (@panagiotism-papatheodorou)
16th March 2019, 9:19
His lap didn’t have any mistakes so it is true for sure. Melbourne has always favored Merc on qualifying but the race is tomorrow.
ruliemaulana (@ruliemaulana)
16th March 2019, 9:27
So this is why the commentator always said Ferrari plant to the track. They barely move.
It really looks like Ferarri had more powerful engine but Merc aero is far superior. If Gasly (or Red Bull strategy on Gasly) didn’t mess up, there would be no other Mercedes power car in the top 10.
David BR (@david-br)
16th March 2019, 11:37
@ruliemaulana Haven’t Mercedes made some substantial changes to their power unit? Heard that somewhere, don’t know if it’s true. But could be that they have power in reserve, set to be turned up later in the season, which would explain Hamilton’s comments about more to come. Just now they seem to be concentrating on their aero solution, which seems to be a good one.
ruliemaulana (@ruliemaulana)
16th March 2019, 15:13
@david-br I don’t know about pu changes, but clearly they had been testing two different set of aero during testing. And someone who claim to be an aero engineering says that Merc design approach are more flexible to refined later on than Ferrari one.
Ads
17th March 2019, 7:07
Mercedes have build a completely new engine for this season.
Balue (@balue)
16th March 2019, 17:36
Ouch..