Sebastian Vettel says he is “pretty much stuck” in terms of understanding his Ferrari SF1000 as his 2020 troubles continued at Silverstone.
Vettel and Ferrari have lacked pace throughout the coronavirus-delayed 2020 campaign and the four-time World Champion has been largely shaded by team-mate Charles Leclerc.
Vettel has scored only 10 points to the 33 amassed by Leclerc and holds just 13th in the standings.
Historically Silverstone has been one of Vettel’s weakest circuits and he has only out-qualified a team-mate once at the venue during his time at Ferrari.
Ferrari has also adopted a low-downforce approach, in order to compensate for its lack of straight-line speed, meaning the team is missing pace through the corners.
Vettel switched to Soft tyres for the final Q2 runs but mustered only 12th – though will start one position higher due to the penalty incurred by Renault’s Esteban Ocon.
“I tried everything I had,” he said. “I was reasonably happy with the laps.
“[With] the car I think we’ve tried lots of things since last week but it doesn’t really make a difference. I think we are pretty much stuck.
“Try to reset and try again tomorrow. That’s all I can do at the moment. I’ve run out of answers.”
Leclerc put Ferrari on the podium last weekend at Silverstone, having qualified fourth, but in Q3 on Saturday he finished down in eighth.
“Looking at my lap I’m very happy with my lap and this is good but we need to do better,” he said.
“We’ve been struggling more than last weekend since the beginning of this weekend mostly because of the tyres being softer.
“With our car at the moment we are using the tyres too much by being on the low downforce settings so losing quite a lot in sector three and that’s what happened today.”
