Sebastian Vettel believes Ferrari's struggles in 2016 have been overplayed, saying "it's not an awful season" despite failing to win a race so far.
Having taken three victories last year, Ferrari started this season with the target of taking the championship fight to the final race. However, Mercedes has won all but one race so far this year, with Red Bull victorious in Spain when Nico Rosberg and Lewis Hamilton collided. Despite the lack of wins, Vettel says recent movement of staff at Ferrari is a positive aspect as it tries to improve on its current performance.
"Some people have left and some people have come in, but usually that does not make big news," Vettel said. "A lot of people have shuffled around and where we started off last year we made it clear where we wanted to go and we wanted to bring Ferrari back to the top.
"It’s true that we didn’t have a great season so far, but it’s also true that it’s not an awful season as some people might think it is. Obviously we are critical of ourselves first because we have not achieved what we set out to achieve and we were closing the gap last year, but unfortunately the gap to the top is still there – sometimes bigger, sometimes smaller – but as a matter of fact it is still there. That’s exactly what happened.
"Why didn’t win a lot of races so far? We weren’t quick enough, but are we working on it? 100 percent. And we have confidence that we will win races in the future."
Vettel's last victory came in Singapore a year ago as Mercedes struggled, but the German does not feel Ferrari or Red Bull can be seen as favourites this weekend.
"Obviously all the races that have passed this year we didn’t win, so we know what happened. But looking forward we are always aiming to win. This track was very good for us last year and I think in general we improved the car from last year so it should be a raceable track for us again.
"It’s difficult to know exactly and in general you have to put Mercedes as the favourite and although they had a very difficult time here last time there is no guarantee that it will happen again. If there is trouble then I think everybody else is happy to take advantage, but looking at it they are the favourites.
"For tyres and strategy in general, it depends what happens in the race with safety cars etcetera. In qualifying it’s clear that you will try to go as fast as you can, but the race you depend on what tyres you have left and also on the safety car."
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