Sebastian Vettel feels Scuderia Ferrari are in a better position this weekend at the Hungaroring than they were in either of the race weekends at the Red Bull Ring.
Vettel may have finished sixth fastest in the morning session in Hungary, 1.235 seconds away from pacesetter Lewis Hamilton, but the overall feeling of the car was much better than it was in either the Austrian or Styrian Grand Prix weekends where Ferrari struggled for pace in both Qualifying and race trim.
He also completed a good number of laps in the afternoon’s wet session at the Hungaroring and set the fastest time ahead of Valtteri Bottas, and regardless of conditions for the rest of the weekend, Vettel has confidence they will not struggle as much.
“I think this morning was ok,” said Vettel. “This track should be a bit better for us and let’s hope that’s the case tomorrow, but we won’t know until we hit qualifying.
“We did more laps than others in the wet, because after the weaknesses we showed last week, we need to understand the car a bit better. We need laps to gain confidence in the car. It’s not a secret that there’s still a lot of homework to do, but overall, we seem to be a bit more competitive.
“The weather looks like being changeable in the next few days, but if it’s dry like Austria, it’ll be ok as we were also good this morning on a dry track. I am looking forward to tomorrow.”
Leclerc ‘Lacking a bit of Confidence’ in the Wet
Team-mate Charles Leclerc ended seventh fastest in the morning session and ended tenth out of the thirteen cars that set lap times in the afternoon.
The Monegasque racer was unable to match Vettel in the wet, with Leclerc citing a lack of confidence in the rain, but the dry running in the morning showed him that Ferrari have made progress with the SF1000 that makes him believe they are heading in the right direction.
“Today things went better than we expected,” said Leclerc. “We arrived here with basically the same car we had in Austria, but it seems to suit this track better, which is good to see. There are fewer straights here compared to the last race venue and here, we are quick around the corners.
“This afternoon, in the rain, we struggled a bit as we were trying out a few things and I wasn’t very happy as I was lacking a bit of confidence in the wet, but we’ve seen some positive signs this morning.
“In my first run on extreme wet tyres I only did two laps, which is not really representative, but looking at Seb’s lap time on the same tyre, he did a great job and there’s probably something positive to take from that.
“I am really looking forward to tomorrow. Hopefully we can convert these positive signs in free practice into a positive result in quali and in the race but there’s still quite a lot of work to do on my side and I’ll try to be in a good place tomorrow.”
