When practice gets underway in Melbourne on Friday, many eyes will be on Ferrari as the F1 world finds out whether or not the Italian team can really be the pacesetter in 2017.
Testing suggested that could be the case, although as ever the truth is that nobody knows what the real story is.
Sebastian Vettel is key to avoid any suggestions that he’s a favorite for the title, insisting that testing didn’t tell the full story.
“So far we don’t know anything,” he said Thursday. “For all of us it will be exciting to find out where we are on Saturday/Sunday, to get a first impression. For us a lot of new things last year didn’t really go the way we expected, so I think for this year we have really focused on ourselves. We have tried to do our job back in the factory and in testing.
“Testing times, I don’t think they are that crucial, I think it matters much more what you show from here onwards. We’ll see. I think we are a bit in the dark like everyone else, not knowing what other people have done. For ourselves we can be reasonably happy, we did decent mileage, we didn’t have any major issues with the car and hopefully we can carry that momentum into the race.”
Vettel still believes that Mercedes is the team to beat: “Mercedes obviously has been in very, very strong form the last three years and even though we changed the regulations, if a team is strong then they will build a strong car the year after, no matter what you do with the rules. I think it’s very clear who is the favorite. For all of us sitting here, we are trying our best to catch-up.
“How much we have succeeded, we will see and, as the season goes on, I’m sure the cars will have big progression and all the teams will bring lots of stuff to develop the cars. So, whoever is in a good place in the beginning and still in a good place at the end will have a chance.”
Ferrari has taken only five poles since 2010, and Vettel acknowledged that the team has had to raise its game.
“I think we worked on all areas, trying to improve. Obviously we all know that qualifying is important to have a good race, so the higher up you qualify the better the chance you have in the race. Statistically it doesn’t look that good, so hopefully we can turn that around.”
Meanwhile, Vettel says he’s enjoyed the 2017 rules package so far.
“I think looking at the performance of the cars obviously it was expected to be a big step up, and that’s how it felt on the track. I think that’s what we all said when we first got out of the car, that it’s a big step forward. It’s not entirely fair to judge to the previous years because it’s a different formula, but I think they will be the fastest cars we have ever driven.
“Naturally, the day I came into Formula One the cars got a bit faster, a bit faster, then they tended stall a little bit. We distributed straight line speed versus cornering speed and I think for us what really gives us a good feeling is cornering speed, and I think we are back to the level we were probably ten years ago, and maybe a bit faster.
“For us it’s always nice to have the feeling that these are the fastest cars we have ever driven. On competitiveness we are all here to find out, that’s why we go racing I guess.”
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