Vettel encouraged by early signs from Ferrari update

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Sebastian Vettel is encouraged by the early signs from Ferrari's power unit update after finishing second in FP2 for the Canadian Grand Prix.

Ferrari has spent development tokens on a new turbo which it has introduced in Montreal, with the power unit playing a key role in how competitive a team is around the Circuit Gilles Villeneuve.

Vettel was just 0.25s off Lewis Hamilton's time in FP2, and asked if he could feel a difference with the power unit upgrade, Vettel replied: "Yes.

"I think the car is always very alive here, with the kerbs it is quite a rough track. There are still some things we can improve and we need to work on. overall the car seems to work, there’s nothing wrong and the bits we brought seem to give us what we expected, so that’s good news for today."

And Vettel believes Ferrari's pace on Friday is representative of how close it can be to Mercedes this weekend.

"Well ideally I hope not to split them and be just ahead of them! I think they will be quick, not a surprise as it’s a circuit that suits them and they’ve been very competitive these last couple of years. In the end we need to do our best and then we see where that will take us. But the closer we can be already from Friday, the better."

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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.