Vettel unable to explain poor Ferrari performance

Sebastian Vettel says he doesn't know why Ferrari lost performance in qualifying in Spain, having looked strong in free practice.

Vettel could only qualify sixth, a place behind teammate Kimi Raikkonen, after both men experienced scrappy sessions.

The German acknowledged that the start could give him an opportunity to make up some ground.

“There's the start and there's a long race, there are a lot of laps,” said the German.

“For sure, lap one is important, but there's a whole race after that. I'll try to go a lot further than that and see what we can do.

"I think the car should be a lot quicker tomorrow. I don't know what happened this afternoon.

“We are disappointed as a team today because we didn't deliver what we can, we need to have a look and understand. We can't change it now.

"Tomorrow is another day, we know that the car is strong, we know that the car can be very strong, we just need to make sure that we get it in the right groove.”

No extra pressure

Vettel said the team has not come under extra pressure because company president Sergio Marchionne targeted race victories.

“We're not all reading what is written in the newspaper. We speak to him also internally, and not just in the newspapers, so it doesn't affect us in the way that you might think.”

Asked what Marchionne had told the team, Vettel said: “Nothing like that! I think the fact is that he turns up tomorrow keeping his fingers crossed and obviously wishing us well.

"At the end, yes, he's our president, and he's also a fan, and he wants Ferrari to do well. Obviously we all have very ambitious targets, we don't need any reminders.”