For the second time this season, Sebastian Vettel was beaten in qualifying by team mate Kimi Raikkonen as Ferrari locked in a third row placing for tomorrow's British Grand Prix.
The former quadruple World Champion finished behind the Finn in each of the weekend's free practice sessions with the trend continuing in qualifying.
"We were simply not quick enough," was Vettel's judgment. "Obviously, if you look at the first two cars they seem to be in a different world. Williams was very competitive in qualifying which was a bit of a surprise when you look at their times yesterday, but then again it's not something really new."
Vettel admitted the session could have gone better for the Scuderia's cars whose pace decreased somewhat from earlier practice sessions.
"It was not a completely smooth session, I think we could have operated a little bit better, plus I think in terms of feeling the car it was not as good as it probably was in some of the practice sessions. So I was struggling a bit, and then for my final attempt I tried to make it happen but made a mistake which didn't help."
The German driver also appeared to have a close encounter with Massa at the very end of Q3, but admitted the consequences were minimal.
"It was on the out lap so I didn't really have an impact on the flying lap. I think Nico was going very slow in the middle of the straight, and I don't know why. I tried to get past Felipe to have a clean preparation to open the lap but then he passed Nico and then hit the brakes, so I was a bit surprised and nearly got caught out."
It wasn't clear to Vettel what amount of the Williams' pace could be attributed to its development or to Ferrari falling back, but he still considers his chances in the race to be intact.
"I don't know how much they have done this weekend. I'm pretty sure everyone tries to bring new bits to improve the car whenever they can. Obviously, we are behind the average and it also feels like we did not extract the best out of our car in the qualifying session today. We're not happy and I'm not happy in particular, but we have to move on. Tomorrow there's the race and I think we have a good pace so a lot of things are still possible."
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