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Vettel: Ferrari SF16-H 'has great potential'

Sebastian Vettel says Ferrari's SF16-H "has great potential" as the team looks to challenge Mercedes for race wins on a consistent basis.

Ferrari entered 2016 with the target of fighting for the championship until the final race of the season, but has yet to win a race this year. A strong performance in Canada saw Vettel finish just five seconds behind race-winner Lewis Hamilton, while he was also second in Baku, and the four-time world champion is encouraged by the signs from Ferrari.

“We still have a long way to go," Vettel said at the FIA Sport Conference in Turin. "I think the moment I joined the team there was a lot of things changing so it still takes some time but we don’t allow ourselves to take that time.

"We have very, very ambitious targets and obviously great competition, but ultimately we want to prove the point that we are the best, we want to win. So naturally after a great season last year when we finished second in the world constructors’ championship we want to step up already this year.

"Currently we’re still lacking a little bit of speed here and there but it’s getting better, I think the car has great potential. The people are coming along so the whole project starts to move in the right direction so I’m confident we will have a bright future.”

Vettel's second place in Baku leaves him third in the drivers' championship, 45 points behind championship leader Nico Rosberg. At the same stage last season, Vettel was 49 points adrift of first place in the drivers' standings.

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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.