After ending the second day of pre-season testing at the Circuit de Catalunya with the fastest time, Sebastian Vettel has admitted he is happy with how the new Scuderia Ferrari is handling on track so far.
The German ran 126 laps of the Spanish circuit on Tuesday, and although his session ended prematurely when he stopped on track five minutes before the scheduled close, he was happy with his time in the car, and now hopes team-mate Kimi Raikkonen has a similar impression of the SF16-H when he steps into the seat for the first time on Wednesday.
“So far the first thing that matters is that the car is reacting and doing what I asked for,” said Vettel. “Now obviously it is crucial that Kimi has a similar impression.
“We worked on a lot of things, it’s a brand new car, which means there are a lot of new bits and things are in a different place. We tried to understand how the car reacts, obviously we had an idea and certain expectation, but when you run the car on track it is always a bit different, you are then dealing with temperatures, cooling etc.
“Sometimes you have to stop a bit longer than necessary or than you really want, just to check, other times the driver goes off track, like I did this morning. But these things happen.
“Overall we are happy, but we know that we need now a lot of mileage, so there is a lot of work ahead of us.”
Vettel believes the sound of the 2016 engines is an improvement compared to 2015, and says it sounds more like what Formula 1 should sound like.
“About the engine, I can say it is nice to have a bit more sound coming back,” said Vettel. “It is still not as loud as it could or should be but it is a lot better than it was, now sounds a bit more like Formula 1.”
