German completes another 100 laps after sleepy early-morning spin
Monday 16 March 2015 14:28, UK
Sebastian Vettel says world champions Mercedes are “still the team to beat” despite Ferrari’s unexpectedly fast start to 2015.
Although the Scuderia’s new boss Maurizio Arrivabene has warned that Ferrari are braced for another “difficult” season this year, their new 2015 car has regularly led the way in winter testing.
While Mercedes continue to focus on reliability rather than pace, both Vettel and team-mate Kimi Raikkonen have frequently topped the timesheets while also enjoying plenty of mileage in the SF15-T.
But as a cautious Arrivabene noted midway through the Barcelona test which marked the halfway stage of the ‘winter season’, there are no prizes handed out for impressing in testing before the real action begins in Melbourne.
“You really have to keep your feet on the ground and remember that there are a lot of things that have changed,” concurred Vettel. “The pace looks okay and good to build on, but obviously I was not here last year so I cannot judge last year’s car. But Kimi and I are happy with the car’s initial behaviour and we go from there.
"There is still a long way to go and Mercedes are still the team to beat.”
The lap times set in testing are a notoriously unreliable indicator of the true pecking order – a point underlined on Saturday when a Lotus topped the timesheets ahead of a Toro Rosso driven by rookie Max Verstappen.
“I would rather wait and see as it depends where you are at the races,” added Vettel. “Mercedes were the strongest team last year in testing, but if I asked you two years ago who had the strongest impression in testing it might have been very different at the first race. As I said it is impossible to read, not just because of fuel loads, but also because of engine upgrades you cannot be sure who will bring what to the first race.”
Despite his mammoth mileage, Vettel’s day wasn’t without drama. There was barely minute on the clock at the start of the session when the German slithered off the track and beached his Ferrari in the gravel.
“I was probably not yet awake,” he admitted.
The sleepy four-time world champion returned to the team’s garage with a sheepish expression and enforced his apology to his race crew by helping them ready the SF15-T again.
“It was very crisp this morning, but cold and I wanted to see how cold it was and went a little bit too aggressive and spun. It was my mistake, but then I tried to help the team as much as I could by taking some of the gravel out of the car."
