Vettel says Ferrari are four tenths off Mercedes' pace and must "catch up quickly"; But German thinks SF71H is improvement on 2017 car
Thursday 13 December 2018 12:49, UK
Sebastian Vettel admits his early lead of the 2018 F1 world championship does not disguise the current pace supremacy Mercedes hold over Ferrari.
Vettel claimed a surprise victory at the season-opener in Melbourne ahead of Lewis Hamilton thanks in large part to a timely Virtual Safety Car.
But Vettel believes Ferrari head into this weekend's Bahrain GP needing to make up a deficit to Mercedes of up to four tenths of a second.
"If you look at the pace in testing and the first race, then clearly Mercedes is fastest," said Vettel.
"A three or four tenths gap - that's also what we saw in the race. Lewis was controlling his pace at the beginning and then pushed when he had to. He had time in hand.
"That's the fair answer."
But Hamilton responded: "The cars are a lot closer than people seem to think. If you look at last year, from the first race to the second race everyone was a lot closer. The Ferrari always goes well here and we didn't win the race last year. It will be close between us all."
Vettel, who was out-qualified by team-mate Kimi Raikkonen in Australia, admitted after his win that he "lacks a little bit of confidence" in the 2018 Ferrari car.
But speaking in Bahrain, Vettel insisted the SF71H is an improvement on its predecessor - but added the Scuderia need to make quick progress to close the gap to Mercedes.
"I think this year we have a better car but we need to get it to work," Vettel said.
"I'm confident the car has potential but we need to make progress and catch up quickly to be there fighting for wins, just as we did in many races last year.
"We have enough clever people to know we are not quick enough yet. We are looking into all sorts of stuff to try and get more performance out of us, out of the team, out of the car so it is also a no-brainer that we know we are not quick enough yet and Mercedes at this stage are quicker.
"I think in general people are quite fired up. We obviously had a great year last year but we missed to win the Drivers' and Constructors' Championship so with this year's contender we improved.
"The car is better but we have to get it in the right window plus we need to catch up looking where others are. Overall we are aware but we are very motivated to turn the page and take that final step. It is the hardest step to take but we are very motivated to take it."
