Ferrari had a very good Portuguese GP Sunday considering their recent struggles, both cars finished in the points For the third time this season, following Austria and the Tuscan GP at Mugello. Charles Leclerc comes home in P4 after starting the race in P4, Sebastian Vettel finished race in P10 to claim final point after starting the race in P15 on the grid.
Both Ferrari drivers struggled at the getaway due to light rain fall at the start of the race. Rain made life particularly difficult for the drivers who were on Medium tyres. Charles therefore lost four places, slipping back to eighth place, while Sebastian reached the end of the first lap in 16th.
Unlike last few races, where Sebastian Vettel struck behind Alfa Romeos for most part of the races. Today, The German made many overtake moves to climb up to 8th place from 16th place before pitting for new set of Hard tyres.
Vettel managed to climb up after first pit-stop to finish the race in P10 to bring back one valuable point to team. But Four-time champion is not happy with the end results, after the race while speaking to media Vettel said, “Really? You want me to be excited about a point now?”
When asked about his team mate performance compared to his and impact of new upgrades on SF1000’s performance today, Vettel said
“I have to look at myself & do my thing. But of course it hurts, mainly because my own expectations are higher than those from outside. It is difficult to process it because I’m too ambitious and too hungry for success”.
“It’s a complicated situation, I’m trying everything I can, and despite working hard, we are not finding a solution. I struggled a lot. This year the car is very complicated, while things seem to be going well for Charles”
“The updates we brought are small things, it’s pretty much the same car since the beginning of the year. Maybe the track was more suited to us. Charles is doing well & seems comfortable while if I push, most of the times I go off the track”
While talking to RTL after the race For the first time, the German also hints that his Ferrari SF1000 must be different from that of his team-mate.
“Obviously the other car is much faster. It’s always the same places where I lose time, I can see from the data. An idiot might never be able to get there (where Leclerc is driving). But whether I am a complete idiot, I dare to doubt. Nevertheless I never hit the corner.”
The support of Ferrari seems to be limited by now. “In the inner circle, I try to get out of the car what I can”, reveals Vettel, referring to a crew of four – including himself, his race engineer Riccardo Adami, a data engineer and another technician. Team boss Mattia Binotto or technical director Enrico Cardile? Neither of them is mentioned in the interview.
Sebastian Vettel (P10)
“I can’t be satisfied with any race where I only manage to take a single point. Unfortunately I didn’t make a good getaway, so instead of gaining places I lost one – and for us this season it is not so easy to overtake. When I had an empty track ahead of me the pace was quite good and this is what I will take away as the positive from here. With better qualifying we could have ended up with a more satisfying result.”
Charles Leclerc (P4)
“We had a strong race and we are seeing some progress, which is very encouraging for the whole team and for me personally. We worked very hard on our race pace and finally we have had a weekend with both a decent qualifying and a good race, so I am very pleased.
The first stint was tricky. In the first few laps I had to keep focused as I was losing quite a lot of positions because we started on the Mediums. Lap after lap we got back to where we wanted to be and it was amazing.
It’s good to see the progress the team is making race after race. If I look at my personal performance so far it has been a good season. I still have work to do, there are definitely a lot of things I still need to improve and I hope that looking back at this year I will remember it as a positive one.”
Mattia Binotto Team Principal
“Overall this was quite a positive race. We scored points with both drivers, with Charles finishing in his start position, while Sebastian managed to take the last available point.
Charles had an excellent race, very mature. We knew that the first lap would be treacherous and so it proved, not least due to the drops of rain that fell right at that moment. Once his tyres were up to temperature, he was able to make up places and get himself into the position we had been hoping for before the race, consolidating fourth place and running at a strong pace.
Sebastian also found himself in difficulty at the start, losing some positions and in the end he didn’t manage to get any higher than tenth.
Now we must confirm the progress seen in recent races as we go into the last part of this championship. We are still a long way back in the Constructors’ Championship but it’s possible to make up ground: this must be our target and we must do everything to achieve it.”
Ferrari says good bye to Portugal
[…] during post-race media session Sebastian Vettel hinted at possibility of difference in machinery across the garage, for costing him lap time, and […]