© Wolfgang Wilhelm for Daimler AG
After pre-season testing Ferrari’s Sebastian Vettel said Mercedes is “fairly quick with ease”, while other teams “need to stretch a bit more”.
During pre-season testing Ferrari seemed to be struggling a bit in terms of performance, which led to rumours that the Italian team was hiding its true pace. Mercedes, on the other hand, seemed to be quick from the get-go. Although he concedes that the teams’ true pace cannot be determined from testing, Vettel believes Mercedes is “at the top”.
“It just looks as if Mercedes is more at ease,” said the four-time champion.
“Not just for the one lap, which is obviously what people look at, but just in general, just the runs.
“I think we also had some runs that were better, some of them were worse so it’s a bit hard to tell. Time of day, track condition then I don’t know what people are doing in the background.
“Obviously, we tested some stuff that was very good other stuff that wasn’t good so it also has an impact on lap times.
“But as I said, probably if you look right now I’d say Mercedes is at the top just because they are every time they go out fairly quick with ease whereas others, I think need to stretch a bit more.
“But we will see,” concluded the German.
