Sebastian Vettel believes Mercedes are up to four tenths of a second quicker than Ferrari, despite beating Lewis Hamilton to victory in the opening race of the season.
“I think if you look at the pace, testing and first race, it’s pretty clear that Mercedes is fastest, probably with three or four tenths gap,” Vettel told media including RaceFans in Bahrain.
Hamilton took pole position by over six-tenths of a second in Melbourne but Vettel says that margin was exaggerated.
“I think in qualifying the gap looked a bit bigger than it should have been,” he said. “I think if you look at the session it’s pretty clear that Q2 in particularly Lewis didn’t get the lap together then in Q3 he did. I think Max [Verstappen] had a small mistake in Q3, I had a small mistake so we should have been a bit closer. That’s the gap we saw in quali and in the race.”
However Vettel said Australia showed Ferrari are close enough to threaten for victories.
“It’s a no-brainer that we know we’re not quick enough yet and Mercedes at this stage is quick. But we go racing, it’s not that we live in simulation land and rely solely on numbers.
“We go racing and as we saw a couple of weeks ago in Australia, as we saw many times over past years. And that I think is the excitement of what we do is that you never really know what happens even though you have a guess. I’m sure you have many statistics and numbers and say many times it works out. But sometimes it doesn’t.”
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dex022 (@dex022)
5th April 2018, 17:09
I figure similar margin like Seb. Spot on.
NewVerstappenFan (@jureo)
5th April 2018, 19:51
Agreed spot on target. It was painfully obvious how quickly Hamilton cought up to Vettel.
So Ferrari in space of one year lost roughly 0.8s of relative competitivness.
Maybe they just struggle like Mercedes did last year first few races.
I would hazard a bet they wont outdevelop Mercedes this season.
Savage_Baboon (@savagebaboon)
5th April 2018, 20:28
“So Ferrari in space of one year lost roughly 0.8s of relative competitivness.”
How? Are you suggesting Ferrari were 0.6 sec ahead of Mercedes at this point last year?
Savage_Baboon (@savagebaboon)
5th April 2018, 20:24
0.4 sec. That’s actually not that bad considering that Ferrari have made some radical changes to their overall design. If they can bag another couple of lucky wins before the summer break things could get interesting (If they start understanding the car better).
For some reason I think they might get lucky again in Bahrain.
Jon (@johns23)
6th April 2018, 2:35
0.4 is an eternity in F1
Sensord4notbeingafanboi (@peartree)
6th April 2018, 5:42
Exactly, that’s 2015 gaps, far too far.
Vettel fan 17 (@)
5th April 2018, 20:52
Sounds like last year:
Ferrari: Mercedes are faster
Mercedes: Ferrari are faster
Esploratore (@esploratore)
5th April 2018, 23:30
I think vettel is realistic with this, 3-4 tenths makes sense. Hamilton certainly had a very good lap, he’s the best proven qualifier in the grid atm, so could add some tenths on his own, and ofc their qualifying mode gives something too.
Then at the first stint he was gaining 2 tenths per lap on average on an in-form raikkonen, obviously unsure if an in-form vettel can do better than raikkonen’s first stint while not being in the lead, and given how he commented the VSC endeavour I think he had some pace in hand, then he fell behind at some point with a mistake and recovered I think 6-7 tenths a lap till he got to 8 tenths from vettel again, and at that point either you overtake or you can’t get closer.
Ferrari also looks very close to red bull, so we’ll see if they can get closer the next races, they certainly need to reduce the gap to 1-2 tenths if they want to be realistic title contenders.
Michael (@freelittlebirds)
6th April 2018, 3:30
I’m not sure Vettel is right about that – it’s really hard to tell which car is faster. For all we know, the Ferrari is faster than the Mercedes and Hamilton is the only variable that accounts for the difference.
It’s obvious by now that we can’t judge a car by Lewis’s performance in a car – he’s been very fast in cars that were not that fast when others drove them – you have to go by the teammate’s performance to get a clearer indication of its actual speed with world class drivers.
If Seb is saying that Lewis adds 0.4 seconds to the car, then he’s probably right about that part but it’s hard to tell what that number is.
Todfod (@todfod)
6th April 2018, 6:45
I would have guessed 0.3s but not in terms of overall pace, just in qualifying pace. I reckon there’s nothing to choose between Mercedes, Ferrari and Red Bull in terms of race pace. There will be circuits that Ferrari and Red Bull are quicker than the Mercs during the season and vice versa. Maybe in warmer conditions the Ferrari will be the car to beat. It’s still a little too early to say.
Either way, I think Vettel needs to stop moaning about party modes and making comments about how quick the Mercedes is and just get down to it. He should start with beating Kimi this weekend.
SaraJ (@sjzelli)
6th April 2018, 12:11
He’s not morning. Maybe you need a refresher on what the word actually means? P.s. KR will never pose a threat to Seb. He’s the inferior talent, as much as I like the guy.
Michael (@freelittlebirds)
7th April 2018, 17:11
Yes Seb, definitely 0.4 seconds slower:-)