Vettel 'struggling and sliding' on first day at Spa

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Sebastian Vettel denied that he was feeling frustrated during Friday's two free practice sessions at Spa, even though the Ferrari driver was frequently seen gesticulating at or heard complaining about drivers who got in his way.

"It’s traffic sometimes, sometimes people, including myself, could do better," Vettel responded when asked if he was being 'tetchy' on the first official day back from Formula One's summer holidays.

"I’m not entirely happy as you can see struggling a bit with the balance of the car. It didn’t feel great out there but that’s up to us, myself and the team, to work on that and improve the car."

Conditions were much hotter than teams have come to expect from Spa, but with the forecast set fair for the race there's still time for the drivers to adapt and find the right set-up in time for the Grand Prix.

"I hope we learn. I think the lap we had on the supersoft was OK, nothing special. A bit difficult to judge, Kimi didn’t have a clean run.

"I think we will be faster tomorrow [Saturday], we can improve the car. It’s quite tricky conditions though, for one lap it is. On a long run, the car was sliding around and struggling to make the tyres last.

"I think everyone was struggling to make the tyres last, I was sliding a lot. At least the cars I saw were struggling a lot, which is a bit of a shame but it’s the same for everyone. We will try and work on that.

Today was a tricky day, very slippery. It’s very hot. I don’t think it matters what tyres you have, it’s slippery for everyone. We’ll see, we have to improve our car. It’s not where we want to be.

"The competitiveness is difficult to say, I don’t think everyone had clear runs so it’s difficult to judge."

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