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Ferrari: Soft tyres key to pressuring Mercedes in Austria

Ferrari believes that its long run pace on supersoft tyres will be key to its hopes of beating Mercedes in this weekend's Austrian Grand Prix.

Sebastian Vettel, Ferrari SF15-T

Sebastian Vettel, Ferrari SF15-T

XPB Images

Sebastian Vettel, Ferrari SF15-T
Sebastian Vettel, Ferrari SF15-T makes a pit stop
Sebastian Vettel, Ferrari SF15-T
Sebastian Vettel, Scuderia Ferrari
Kimi Raikkonen, Ferrari SF15-T
Kimi Raikkonen, Ferrari SF15-T
Kimi Raikkonen, Ferrari SF15-T

The Maranello outfit will bring fresh updates to its car for the race at the Red Bull Ring, but thinks that its focus must be on maximising its ability to push on the softest compound tyres, especially if it can get near the front of the grid.

Sebastian Vettel's race engineer Riccardo Adami made it clear in a team preview ahead of the weekend that making life uncomfortable for Mercedes was a priority.

"It is very important to put pressure on Mercedes," said Adami, whose outfit was not able to exploit brake and fuel concerns for its rivals at the Canadian Grand Prix.

"We will try to have a very good reading of the tyres on Friday and try to prepare a good strategy for Sunday.

"[But] having said that, we need to focus on qualifying more than the race, to start at the front and then move with the super soft from there."

Updates to address weaknesses

Ferrari has pushed hard in recent races to bring improvements to its car in a bid to close the gap to Mercedes.

In Spain it introduced an overhaul of its aerodynamic package, while the team also used some of its engine development tokens for a power unit upgrade in Canada.

Adami confirmed that further work was being focused on addressing areas where drivers Sebastian Vettel and Kimi Raikkonen felt the chassis was lacking.

"Development is going on at all the races," he said. "At every race we have new parts we bring to the track.

"We are trying to address the main weakness of the car according to the drivers, and to address it with aero development and chassis development.

"So we are looking forward to see in the next few races if this development will pay off."

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