Ferrari 'not too bothered' by gap to Mercedes in Baku

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It's not been the most smooth-sailing of weekends for Sebastian Vettel. He was involved in several run-offs and incidents during Friday practice, and the situation went downhill on Saturday morning.

Halfway through FP3 the German was instructed to pit with suspected hydraulic issues on his SF70H. The Ferrari mechanics opted to carry out a precautionary engine change, which was completed in time for the start of qualifying.

Vettel went on to secure fourth place on the grid for the Azerbaijan Grand Prix, but he'd clearly been hoping for better

"I think the result is okay, but I'm not entirely happy obviously," he said. "This morning didn't help, but it's not an excuse - we're doing enough laps.

"At the end I was alone and had no tow in the last sector," he explained. But as I said, I'm not a big fan of excuses. I could have done a bit better. But probably P3 was the maximum."

Both Ferraris were over a second behind Lewis Hamilton's pole position time. It's a gap that Vettel hadn't expected.

"We were not quick enough," Vettel acknowledged "I think the gap to Mercedes in front is bigger than anyone expected.

"For us and also Red Bull we looked we could match all weekend long. But I think overall they probably felt more confident and found more in the car. They have a one second advantage, but I don't think they will tomorrow.

"I'm not too bothered by the gap," he insisted. "It's not nice but I'm equally not worried. The car was very good yesterday and in the long run we looked very competitive. We should be fine.”

"[Baku] is one of the tracks where you need to have the car in the window and tyres in the window. Then if you feel confident, you extract a lot of lap time as well."

Hamilton beats Bottas to pole position in Baku

Vettel's Ferrari team mate Kimi Raikkonen was also focussed on tyre performance in Baku this weekend after claiming third place on the grid.

"It's better than where I was before, but it's been difficult with the tyres to switch them on," he said.

"It's been a struggle every time.

"They either work a little bit better or not so good," he continued. "Luckily the last set was a slightly more better feeling just on the warm-up side.

"Still not perfect," he added. "But I think if you switch them on you can go a lot faster."

Asked if the pair could still take the fight to the rivals despite Mercedes' dominant showing in the final round of qualifying, Raikkonen was wary in reply.

"I think we're close enough with Mercedes," he said. "But I think it's a lot to do with how you switch on the tyres or not."

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Andrew Lewin

Andrew first became a fan of Formula 1 during the time when Michael Schumacher and Damon Hill were stepping into the limelight after the era of Alain Prost, Nigel Mansell and Aryton Senna. He's been addicted ever since, and has been writing about the sport now for nearly a quarter of a century for a number of online news sites. He's also written professionally about GP2 (now Formula 2), GP3, IndyCar, World Rally Championship, MotoGP and NASCAR. In his other professional life, Andrew is a freelance writer, social media consultant, web developer/programmer, and digital specialist in the fields of accessibility, usability, IA, online communities and public sector procurement. He worked for many years in magazine production at Bauer Media, and for over a decade he was part of the digital media team at the UK government's communications department. Born and raised in Essex, Andrew currently lives and works in south-west London.