Sebastian Vettel remains adamant that Ferrari can challenge for victory at the Australian Grand Prix, in the wake of Lewis Hamilton opening a sizeable one-lap advantage in qualifying.
Vettel finished a close second to Hamilton after the first push laps in Q3 as he, the Briton and Red Bull’s Max Verstappen returned to the pits covered by just 0.061s.
However, Hamilton streaked six-tenths clear of the pack on his second effort, setting a new track record, as Vettel slipped to third place, behind team-mate Kimi Raikkonen.
Vettel, though, is confident over the race pace of the SF71-H, as he strives to make it back-to-back Australian Grand Prix wins.
“I think I had a little bit in hand,” said Vettel. “I messed up a bit in the final sector, going into Turn 13. So not ideal from my side but still, felt like a good lap and a good session.
“The car was coming alive so I’m pretty happy with what we did.
“Obviously the gap [to Hamilton] is bigger than we want it to be. I don’t think it was very close, seven-tenths obviously is quite big.
“There’s some homework for us, but we’ve seen many times now, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017 that, usually on Sunday, things get a little bit closer. We bet on that.”
With Hamilton flying solo for Mercedes at the front of the grid, due to Valtteri Bottas’ Q3 crash and gearbox penalty, Vettel commented that “hopefully we can play two against one.
“I think in terms of race pace we should be closer.”
Raikkonen, meanwhile, will line up alongside Hamilton on the front row of the grid.
“If you purely look at time differences it’s bigger than for sure we want but I think it wasn’t very straightforward, the whole day with conditions and everything,” he said.
“We have to see in the next ones but I think everything was more or less OK.
“There was one mistake in Q2, I lost one run and obviously then we used, like a half a lap used tyres in the first try [in Q3] but, I think feeling-wise, not too bad.
“For sure things could be better here and there, we try to make a good job tomorrow and keep working and see what we can do.”
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