Vettel qualifies second to Hamilton at Australian GP; Ferrari's first front row since 2015
Thursday 30 March 2017 11:25, UK
Ferrari are keeping Mercedes "very honest" and will challenge the world champions in Sunday's Australian GP, says Sky Sports F1's Martin Brundle.
Vettel was within three tenths of Hamilton's time and admitted he had made a couple of mistakes on his final lap of qualifying, having earlier topped the final practice timesheets.
Ferrari arrived in Melbourne having shown impressive pace during winter testing and Brundle is expecting the Scuderia to push Mercedes throughout the season.
"It was a good lap from Lewis, another pole position. He's really racking them up," Brundle said.
"But I'm very pleased to see Ferrari keeping Mercedes very honest indeed. Vettel is ruing a couple of small mistakes and I think he would have felt he could get pole.
"I asked team principal Maurizio Arrivabene if he was happy with [second] and he said 'No, when you smell the food you want to eat it'. They felt they should have been on pole so we will see how that transpires tomorrow. We have got quite a close race there.
"We have got new rules tomorrow for how the drivers get off the line with the clutch. I think that is going to make some very variable starts which will have another impact.
"It's very clear Ferrari are fast enough to challenge Mercedes. You are going to have to get up pretty early to beat Lewis Hamilton on a grand prix season when he has a very good car as well.
"F1 drivers are the opposite to boxers. Boxers are always like 'I'll knock him down in a second' while F1 drivers say 'We're not quite as fast as them' and try to manage expectations and the pressure.
"They sandbag a bit as we saw Vettel do again here in Q2. It's a bit of cat and mouse going on and we hope they can keep that up all through the season."
Vettel's time saw him split the two Mercedes drivers, with Valtteri Bottas having to settle for third in his debut race for the Silver Arrows.
Bottas was unhappy with his performance but Brundle expects the Finn to close the gap to team-mate Hamilton as the season progresses.
He said: "I thought Bottas did absolutely fine. We know how fast Hamilton is in qualifying - he out qualified Nico Rosberg significantly last year despite not winning the world championship.
"To be a quarter of a second behind is no shame. I think we will see Bottas getting closer and closer and Lewis will have to keep a bit of an eye over his shoulder."
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