Vettel 'wouldn't mind' a rainy day to boost Aston's chances

Sebastian Vettel was satisfied overall with his opening day of running at the Styrian GP, but the German driver reckoned that a bout of rain in Austria could play into Aston Martin's hands.

Vettel concluded Friday's second practice P6, while Aston teammate Lance Stroll was two spots behind, a pair of results that reflected a reasonably good first day for Team Silverstone.

Nevertheless, the four-time world champion underscored the need for Aston to improve the pace of its AMR21 in race trim.

"I think it was okay," Vettel said. "The one-lap pace looked a bit better today but I think, on the long-run pace, I think we still need to do a bit of work.

"It’s obviously good that we know what we’re lacking, but not so easy to change that, so we’ll see.

"It’s nice to be here, I was expecting some rain to be honest. It didn’t come, but maybe we’ll get some tomorrow.

©AstonMartin

"It is what it is. It’s summertime, there’s mountains around and it’s obviously quite hot, so you have local showers. We just need to make sure we’re on the right tyre at the right time.

"I think it’s very difficult to make predictions, but I wouldn’t mind having some wet weather running. I don’t think we’ve had much yet, we had some at Imola but it would be nice to get some."

Vettel said there was no specific weakness to address, calling for improvements all around.

"It’s a little bit of everything," he added. "I think we weren’t as quick as we would like both on the straights and in the corners.

"It’s a bit hard to get everything at once, but I’ll pass it onto the engineers and we’ll see what we get."

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On Stroll's side of the Aston Martin garage, the Canadian agreed with Vettel and hopes the heavens would open over the Red Bull Ring "to mix things up".

"The car felt good from the first lap and both sessions were positive for us," Stroll said.

"We know where we can make some improvements, such as the balance in the low-speed corners, so we will go away tonight and review the data to see where we can find some further improvements.

"There has been a lot of talk about rain, but it only slightly drizzled at times today, so it was not really a factor.

"I love driving in wet conditions and it always mixes up the field - so I will not complain if we get some rain tomorrow or Sunday."

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