Vettel: “I would have liked to bring home some points”

Ferrari’s long season continues, as the team leaves Germany’s Nürburgring circuit with P7 and P11 in the maiden Eifel Grand Prix. The SF1000 was not as competitive in the race as it had been in qualifying, they struggled to bring tyres into right working temperature.

Sebastian Vettel started the race in P11 and finished in P11, he struggled to overtake Alfa Romeo & Antonio for third race weekend in a row. Charles Leclerc started race in P4 and finished race in P7, he also struggled to generate enough heat in the tyres.

Sebastian Vettel (P11)

“I would have liked to bring home some points, but generally, I was struggling too much with the tyres. I think the start wasn’t bad. I was on the Medium compound and only lost one place to Giovinazzi in the Alfa Romeo. However once my tyres were in the right temperature window I was stuck behind him and I was struggling a lot to pass him. I probably took too much of a risk and damaged my tyres. I was obliged to pit and after that it was very difficult to fight back.

With the Safety Car at the end we thought there was a chance for points, we fought with Magnussen and I also tried to pass Giovinazzi. In the end we just weren’t able to pick up the last point. It was a very difficult day.”

Charles Leclerc (P7)

“Seventh is the best we could do today. On the soft tyres at the beginning we struggled massively, which compromised our race. We had a lot of graining so we were very slow and lost several positions. So we went for a two-stop strategy, which I believe was the right thing to do.

On the medium tyre it went quite well and we did some good overtaking which is always fun. It was very tricky after the safety car period towards the end of the race, because I had to do the re-start on old tyres and it was very cold, but I think we managed pretty well. I am happy with the overall improvement we have seen in recent weeks. We are not yet where we want to be, but every small step is going in the right direction and this is what we need.”

Mattia Binotto Team Principal

“It was a tough race today, mainly down to getting the tyre temperatures into the right operating window. That was particularly the case with Charles who, after a good start, began to suffer with graining on the Softs, right from the first few laps, which meant he was unable to push as hard as he would have liked. We therefore had to pit him earlier than planned, immediately switching him to another strategy. Then, in the closing stages, when it would have been possible to pit under the Safety Car, we took the joint decision to leave him out on the Mediums, given what we had seen in the early stages of the race.

As for Sebastian, the spin early on compromised his race and from then on, there was little to be done, even in the final laps when he was running the Softs.

Of course, we are not satisfied with this result, but we continue to work on improving our overall performance level. We saw signs of progress in qualifying, but the important thing is that the updates we are introducing seem to be going in the right direction, especially looking ahead to 2021. In the light of this, we should also have a few updates for the next race in Portimao.”