Vettel calls on Ferrari to analyse Mercedes gap

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Sebastian Vettel wants Ferrari to investigate why it is unable to get as close to Mercedes in Baku as it did in Canada last weekend.

The four-time world champion challenged for pole position in Montreal and pushed Lewis Hamilton all the way in the race, eventually finishing five seconds adrift after a strategic error. This weekend's Grand Prix of Europe has seen Mercedes enjoy a much bigger advantage, with Vettel 1.2s off pole position and he has called on Ferrari to analyse what the reasons are for the gap.

“One thousandth I had in my pocket yes," Vettel said having set the exact same time as Daniel Ricciardo in Q3, but starting behind the Red Bull as Ricciardo posted his lap first. "I think we did a good step from yesterday, we were quite a long way off so I think we improved the car. Maybe also naturally the conditions came a bit more towards us.

"But overall, obviously still not great if you look at the gap to Mercedes in the front, so that’s something we need to try and understand because we know that the car is quick and the pace is there, which we’ve seen even last week.

"Obviously here is a different circuit, different conditions but yeah, not ideal. But nevertheless we’ve put both cars in a position to have a good race so anything can happen. I’m excited to race tomorrow.”

And Vettel dismissed any notion that the deficit is simply down to the power unit, citing low speed corners as Ferrari's biggest problem.

“Well I think if you look at the gap to pole position, I don’t think it’s fair. We have a strong engine, we have made very good progress and I don’t think that’s it. I know that’s not the place that we lose most of the time.

"There are a lot of corners here and we seem to just struggle to extract the same out of the low speed corners than other people do, arguably also Force India, that’s something we need to understand. We know that our car is quick but for some reason here and there around this track we seem to struggle a bit.”

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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.