Sebastian Vettel and Ferrari have found out that the issue with their one lap pace and their race pace was indeed with their car and not the ‘thinner’ Pirelli tyres.
Mercedes dominated the weekend in Barcelona and the rumour mill said that the Mercedes had influenced Pirelli to introduce the thinner tyres so as to complement their package.
Pirelli and Mercedes though brushed aside those rumours, as the thinner tyres were introduced because of overheating and blisters caused during winter testing in March.
During in-season testing in Barcelona, Vettel tested the standard Pirelli soft and medium tyres along with the thinner ones. The testing was majorly being carried out by Ferrari in order to determine what the issue with its race pace was.
And it turns out that the issue was actually with Ferrari and not with Pirelli.
“I think it’s pretty straightforward,” Vettel said.
“Obviously you don’t get the chance to revisit this kind of decisions that are made [very often], but we did it today and the result is that if we had had the normal tyres on Sunday, it would have probably been worse, so it was the correct call. It was our fault for not having the same tyre wear or life as other people.” he added.
Vettel also confirmed that most part of testing today as around solving race related issues.
“It’s good to have the test to be able to compare and I think we have some ideas. Now it’s up to us to turn those ideas into reality. As I said it was good in terms of timing, coming from a poor weekend for us, we were not quick enough and more than not being quick enough we were struggling to make the tyres last — these things have a link — so it was good to have a possibility to revisit it and now it’s up to us to take action.
“Obviously it looked like from the outside they [Mercedes] had a stronger weekend, without any big issues, but we need to look at ourselves, focus on our car and our problems, so we’ll be stronger again.” Vettel concluded.
