Sebastian Vettel knows his Scuderia Ferrari team have not performed to the level they were expecting to in 2016, but despite some of the development focus now being turned to the 2017 car, the German knows there is still some progress being made with the SF16-H.
With the drastic rule changes afoot for next year, Vettel knows switching attention to the 2017 car is essential, but still feels the team can learn a lot with developments on the 2016 machine as they aim to return to the front of the field, a place where the German feels the Italian outfit belong.
“The 2017 project is already fully in progress, we’re trying to do a lot and but the same time we’re still focusing on this year, because there are a lot of things for us to learn and to take into next year, even though a lot of the rules will change and the cars will look very different,” said Vettel.
“It’s true that this year we expected a lot more, we had a very good season last year and we wanted to close the gap to practically nothing but so far we haven’t succeeded.
“There are some reasons we had understood, some other we still have to find, but overall we had made progresses. We had a rough start, races are not going our way and we are not yet where we want to be, Ferrari belongs to the top and that’s what we are trying to achieve and for every single race, for every championship that we start.”
Looking ahead to this weekend for his home Grand Prix at Hockenheim, Vettel feels it is a special feeling to race at the circuit, and feels that Ferrari should have a good race.
“As for this weekend, racing here is something special: Hockenheim is a very short distance to my birth place, Heppenheim,” said Vettel.
“I like the track, I’ve been running here a lot when I was younger and hopefully the first time with Ferrari I can have a great race. We’re aiming at a podium, I think we should be strong this weekend.”
