Sebastian Vettel says his Ferrari SF71H “didn’t click” during his qualifying simulation at the Belgian Grand Prix, but remains hopeful of gains.
Vettel led the way in the opening practice session at Spa-Francorchamps but slipped to fifth in the afternoon as drivers fitted the Supersoft tyres for one-lap low-fuel efforts.
Vettel’s best time was 0.774s slower than the quickest effort in the session, which was achieved by Ferrari team-mate Kimi Raikkonen.
“We have a bit of margin, there’s quite a bit more in the car, I need to make sure I get to it tomorrow,” said Vettel, who heads into the second half of the season 24 points behind Lewis Hamilton.
“Here it’s important if you’re confident to get the right timing as there isn’t much time to think, when to turn in and so on because the cars are quite fast.
“It needs to click. On one lap, it didn’t click. Kimi maybe was a bit happier on one lap. But we still have a bit of time.”
Raikkonen was typically unflustered by his position atop the timesheets at a venue where he has won four Grands Prix.
“As we always say on Fridays, it’s Friday and the lap times don’t really matter today,” he said.
“Tomorrow we’ll try to do our best and we’ll see where we end up.
“I don’t know what the others are doing and I’m not really interested now. We do our things and we’ll see what happens.”
