Sebastian Vettel doesn’t believe Ferrari have made a big enough step in Spain to close the gap to Mercedes, but they’ve not fallen further behind either.
The German posted a best lap of 1:27.260 during second practice, which was only four-tenths down on Lewis Hamilton’s chart-topping time.
However Vettel doesn’t believe the gap is any smaller than previously, despite Ferrari introducing a raft of upgrades, which team principal Maurizio Arrivabene described as an “almost new car”.
“Although the gap was around four tenths, it was a bit more if you look at the whole day,” explained the four-time champion. “I haven’t seen the long runs.
“We can improve the car, yes, but I guess the gap is still there. That’s the bad news for us.”
Meanwhile team-mate Kimi Raikkonen struggled with his set-up on Friday. The Finn described the car as “not very nice at all”, with wind conditions a possible factor.
“I don’t know if it was the wind conditions or the circuit, but we have a lot of work to do,” he said in the afternoon.
“It’s not too bad on laptime, but I couldn’t put the lap together because it just didn’t feel very nice at all.
“We have to see what we can do because the feeling was not good.”