Vettel says Mercedes "more at ease" with 2020 F1 car
Sebastian Vettel believes Mercedes' looked "more at ease" with its new Formula 1 car through winter testing, leaving Ferrari trailing ahead the new season.
Mercedes ended pre-season testing with the fastest time and more laps completed than any other team, prompting Ferrari chief Mattia Binotto to declare his team was behind on pace.
Vettel and teammate Charles Leclerc supported Binotto's assessment, but Mercedes pace-setter Valtteri Bottas was unwilling to read too much into the comments, saying teams play "weird games" in winter.
Vettel reported that his Ferrari car felt "too draggy" through testing, having lapped a second off Bottas' benchmark time.
Asked if he felt worried by what he'd seen from Mercedes, Vettel replied: "It just looks as if Mercedes is more at ease.
"Not just for the one lap, which is what people look at, but just in general, also the [long] runs.
"I think we also had some runs that were better, some runs that were worse. It's a bit hard to tell, with the time of day, track conditions, then I don't know what people are doing in the background.
"Obviously we tested some stuff that was very good, other stuff that wasn't good, so it also has an impact on laptimes.
"Probably if you look right now, Mercedes is at the top. Every time they go out, they are fairly quick with ease, whereas others I think need to stretch a bit more."
Ferrari opens said it was changing its approach for testing in 2020 after an impressive performance ahead of the '19 season proved misleading.
The team won just three races as Mercedes wrapped up both championships with ease despite appearing to struggle in testing.
Vettel said that while it was hard to be confident of the pecking order until the opening race in Melbourne, he felt enough of a picture could be built from the testing results.
"I think we see enough with six days of running. You know roughly where you're at, but come Australia, things may look different," Vettel said.
"We'll really see where we are in the first two races. I think you have a good picture, and then take it from there.
"Right now, maybe we are not at the top of the timesheets every day, so maybe not the favourites, but let's see where we are in Australia."
Share Or Save This Story
1998 Belgian GP: When the Schumachers went to war
The race that transformed perceptions of Red Bull
Hamilton in the process of selecting Brad Pitt’s co-star for F1 movie
Sebastian Vettel: F1 must combine “things we love” with sustainable future
Sebastian Vettel: “I’d be very happy” for Kimi Antonelli to beat me as F1’s youngest champion
The deeper meaning of Vettel’s emotional Schumacher demo run at Monza
Why Mercedes didn’t expect “Monza 2.0” from Kimi Antonelli in Baku
Why Mercedes is still quicker than McLaren
Why Max Verstappen says 0.196s Baku finish-line gap to George Russell is slightly misleading
Alpine lost Fuji WEC victory by 0.591s because it “didn’t want to sacrifice a car”
Charles Leclerc: “McLaren and Red Bull did a step forward that we didn’t do”
The one detail that impresses Red Bull most about Isack Hadjar's "outstanding" F1 return
"Crazy and unfair": Anger over Nicolo Bulega extensively testing Ducati's 850cc MotoGP bike
Why Mercedes is still quicker than McLaren
Baku late-race chaos almost costs George Russell victory over Max Verstappen
How George Russell claimed his career-best pole margin in F1 Azerbaijan GP qualifying
How the chase to catch Mercedes is unfolding
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.
Top Comments