Scuderia Ferrari‘s Sebastian Vettel will line up third on the grid for tomorrow’s Abu Dhabi Grand Prix at the Yas Marina Circuit, but feels as though the car was missing pace today in qualifying.
It was a Mercedes AMG Petronas Formula One Team 1-2 today, with Valtteri Bottas claiming consecutive poles for the first time in his career after he beat Vettel to the top spot last time out in Brazil. Lewis Hamilton will line up alongside him, but the Ferrari team was a way off the pace, with Vettel’s fastest lap being over half a second down on the pole sitter’s.
Vettel is still confident that the team can make up the gap to their competitors in the race but knows that it will be tough to create an overtaking opportunity, as typically, the Yas Marina Circuit does not always lend itself to this type of racing.
“I think we were missing some speed today in qualifying, but I think tomorrow we can be closer to our competitors, so we’ll see,” commented Vettel.
Vettel knows that the Mercedes pulled out such an advantage in sector two of the lap but in sectors one and three, the Ferrari was more evenly matched.
“Especially in Q3, in sector 2, they were very fast, while in the first and third sector we were more or less on the pace.
Hopefully tomorrow it can be different: I think during the race we should have a better pace. Winning is always possible, even though here it’s difficult to overtake if your speed is not different to the other cars. So, let’s see what this race can bring and hopefully we can put pressure on our rivals”.
