Championship leader Sebastian Vettel says he felt “healthier and more in control” of his Ferrari SF71-H in Bahrain as he maintained his perfect start to the 2018 season.
Vettel triumphed in Australia but was third-best for much of the weekend, and spoke of his desire to improve his feeling with Ferrari’s 2018 package, having acknowledged his win was fortuitous.
Vettel stormed to pole position in Bahrain and followed it up with victory, running a Supersoft / Soft strategy, as he fended off a late surge from Mercedes’ Valtteri Bottas, who used Mediums for his final stint.
“You try to put so many things together and sometimes you succeed more than other times, I think probably the circuit came our way,” said Vettel on his and Ferrari’s pace.
“I think mostly the fact I had a better feel with the car, we worked on the setup helped us to extract more. It was more consistent on one lap but also in the race.
“I felt just healthier and more in control.
“How much they [Mercedes] struggled, I don’t know. I think they looked pretty handy at the end of the stints, at least, and in qualifying the gap wasn’t massive.
“I think overall it’s been close but obviously, it’s good to be just ahead.”
Vettel added that he sees no reason why he cannot convert his current pace when action resumes in China this weekend, but is wary that Ferrari has to find the narrow “sweet spot” in order to succeed.
“I don’t know how to explain the best way but if you have more confidence and the car’s responding to your input then ultimately you go faster because you know what to expect and you can anticipate and overall you are happier,” he said.
“I think that’s the main step that we did for this weekend, working for the set-up.
“Now Shanghai’s a completely different course, with different conditions. Usually it’s quite a bit cooler there. So, we’ll see when we get there – but yeah, it’s a tricky one to get everything right. The setup again will be crucial for us.
“It seems a bit more difficult to get into the window but if we do like this weekend, and we find the sweet spot, then I’m pretty confident that we can do well there as well.”
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