Breaking news

Formula 1

Vettel says Ferrari's car not "as bad as it looks"

Sebastian Vettel thinks Ferrari's car is not as bad as it looks, despite rival Mercedes taking its sixth straight victory in Formula 1 this year.

Jonathan Noble

Published: May 27, 2019, 3:44 PM

Copy link

Share on Viber

Add as a preferred source

Sebastian Vettel, Ferrari SF90

While the German was able to finish second in Monaco behind race winner Lewis Hamilton, he is well aware that the result was helped by Valtteri Bottas suffering a puncture and Max Verstappen getting a penalty.

But while not having the pace to win, Vettel thinks that Ferrari's car is not as far away from Mercedes as results this year suggest – and thinks a push to add downforce to his car will pay big dividends.

Reflecting on being able to hold off Bottas in the race, Vettel said: "I saw that Valtteri was faster but there was no way he was going to pass, as our straight line speed is really good. It's just because overall we are lacking downforce, a weakness that we know.

"I don't think the car is as bad as it looks. The results should be better here and there but it's very difficult for us to get the car in the window where it is happy.

"Certainly when we get it in there we're more competitive, but still a way from where we want to be. That's really the key lesson: we need to focus on trying to get the car short-term more in that window.

"Looking forward for the next three, four, five races, obviously make sure we improve the car, put more grip onto the car so that we can go faster, simple as that."

Vettel even joked that Ferrari was in need of finding the 'grip guy', with its key struggle this year being able to switch its tyres on.

"That guy seems to hide fairly well," he said. "I don't know exactly where he is right now, so if you find him, or if you've got his number, that grip guy, we've been looking for him for a while. I don't think there are any secrets we will be able to unveil. As usual, attention to detail and a lot hard work is the only way to get us up."

Vettel also said that he was not immune from taking some of the blame for Ferrari's form this year, as he says he has not performed at his best.

"I'm part of the team so I don't put myself above [it]," he explained. "I've had some difficult moments this year where I'm fighting the car,

"I'm not really entering yet to the level where I feel a lot more comfortable and I feel comfortable to squeeze out more performance from the car. But I think it's linked to the fact that we struggle to put our car in the right window.

"Once it is there, it is feeling better and you're able to build up on that but it doesn't happen very often but it's a combination of things. I think first we are lacking overall performance and that overall performance would help us probably to put the tyres more often in the window they would like to be in.

"I think it's not a secret, by now, after six races that these tyres this year seem a bit more critical to get exactly into that window."

We want your opinion!

What would you like to see on Motorsport.com?

Take our 5 minute survey.

- The Motorsport.com Team

Read and post comments

Share Or Save This Story

Copy link

Share on Viber

Previous article Bottas: Verstappen "kept drifting to the right" in pitlane incident

Next article Debate: Monaco GP 2019 - Tense or frustrating to watch?

Top Comments

There are no comments at the moment. Would you like to write one?

View More & Comment

Latest news

Toprak Razgatlioglu to miss the rest MotoGP season due to shoulder injury

MotoGP

MGP MotoGP

Australian GP

57 min

Toprak Razgatlioglu to miss the rest MotoGP season due to shoulder injury

MotoGP teams told Qatar Grand Prix expected to go ahead

MotoGP

MGP MotoGP

Qatar GP

1 h

MotoGP teams told Qatar Grand Prix expected to go ahead

Honda confirms Diogo Moreira for factory team in 2027; David Alonso heads to LCR

MotoGP

MGP MotoGP 2 h

Honda confirms Diogo Moreira for factory team in 2027; David Alonso heads to LCR

Vincent Biard: “The Maserati GT2 was thrilling in 2026; next year we want continuity and progress”

Sponsored

Sponsored

Portimão

2 h

Vincent Biard: “The Maserati GT2 was thrilling in 2026; next year we want continuity and progress”

Feature

Discover prime content

How levelling the playing field isn’t antithetical to the principles of F1

Formula 1

By Pat Symonds

How levelling the playing field isn’t antithetical to the principles of F1

Lights, Camara, action: How Haas picked F1's latest rookie for 2027

Formula 1

Singapore GP

By Jake Boxall-Legge

Lights, Camara, action: How Haas picked F1's latest rookie for 2027

Employing team orders can simply be a matter of common sense

Formula 1

By Kevin Turner

Employing team orders can simply be a matter of common sense

Why Christian Horner sees history repeating itself for Adrian Newey at Aston Martin

Formula 1

Singapore GP

By Ronald Vording

Why Christian Horner sees history repeating itself for Adrian Newey at Aston Martin

Subscribe and access Motorsport.com with your ad-blocker.

From Formula 1 to MotoGP we report straight from the paddock because we love our sport, just like you. In order to keep delivering our expert journalism, our website uses advertising. Still, we want to give you the opportunity to enjoy an ad-free and tracker-free website and to continue using your adblocker.

You have 2 options:

Become a subscriber.
Disable your adblocker.

Subscribe now Already subscribed? Sign in here

Already disabled your adblocker?
Reload page

Manage Alerts