Vettel: Ferrari deficit to Mercedes 'not really a surprise'

Sebastian Vettel says the deficit conceded by Ferrari to Mercedes on the opening day of running in Spain did not come as a surprise to the German given his car's shortfall in Barcelona's slow corners.

Vettel marginally trailed pace-setter Valtteri Bottas in FP1 and concluded Friday's second session in fourth place, just behind team mate Charles Leclerc, with the pair giving up a little over three tenths of a second to the Mercedes drivers.

In a bid to counter its rival after its opening four-race clean sweep, Ferrari introduced in Barcelona its Spec-2 engine, but Vettel's bone of contention was with his SF90 chassis and the time lost in the Circuit de Catalunya's slower final sector.

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"It’s not the first time this year we’re losing in these sort of corners," said Vettel.

"If it was easy we’d just fix it. But currently we’re working very hard and still trying to understand why we are losing out in these type of corners sometimes more than other times."

Assessing his performance and his car's lack of efficiency in the slow corners, Vettel said the deficit to Mercedes on the timesheet was "not really a surprise" and  offered "fair picture" of the the performance level.

"I think engine-wise we’re happy," he added. "It’s Friday, so it’s a bit difficult to know what we are doing compared to other people.

"Car-wise, we put everything on that we expected to put on the car. Feeling-wise, it’s a different story. It’s a fair picture that we haven’t been the quickest today."

Leclerc agreed with Vettel that the balance of Ferrari's SF90 was far from perfect, but the Monegasque was confident that a bit of fine-tuning on Saturday would improve the car's performance.

"It doesn't scare me," said Leclerc. "Obviously I would have preferred to be three-four tenths ahead but at the moment it's that way.

"We are trying to work on the car, on the balance especially. I think we will win a bit of time tomorrow. Whether it will be enough time or not I don't know, we'll see."

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