Sebastian Vettel, who is leading Ferrari chart at Formula 1, is aware of his performance below the expectations.
Vettel accounted unnatural behavior of his SF90 for not being able to perform at his level best.
Ferrari build high expectations for Formula 1 season 2019 in the pre-season testing, where the team standout. But the team so far has failed to perform at the similar mark during races.
The German is ahead of his team mate and has been able to find himself on podium for two events at the third place.
However, he is struggling more than his team-mate Charles Leclerc and has failed to find the right pace. He believes that his team must work-out performance issues and shall find more power to fight Mercedes.
“We need stronger pace, simple as that,” said Vettel. “We need to be faster.
“It seems that for us it’s more of a conscious effort to get the car in the right window, whereas maybe for them it seems to click a little bit easier.
“Especially a place like [Baku], you need the confidence in the car.
“I’m not there yet. I can feel that I’m not driving at my best because simply the car does not answer or does not respond the way I like.
“And then I think it’s unnatural. I think everybody’s been there.”
Leclerc is behind in terms of point but his pace has outperformed the German so far this season.
The team order enacted by Ferrari in Australia and China explains why Monégasque lag behind his team mate by five points.
Leclerc is so far only one to claim a pole position for Ferrari this season in Bahrain.
“At the moment I’m not so unhappy with the car,” said Leclerc while answering to a question whether he share the similar view regarding SF90.
“We maybe need to work a little bit on our race. I think in qualifying the car felt amazing, in the race I have a little bit more balance problems.
“But these are small issues and I’m pretty sure if we work on it we’ll get over it.”
Vettel responded to his lower peak speculations that he had been cautious with SF90.
“When it’s not there [the performance], then your judgement is normally right, to not go there because you end-up losing the car,” said Vettel.
“I seem to be more sensitive at the first races than at the test. The test was really good but that’s a long time ago now.
“We need to look forward and improve the way we handle things, the way we work, to just get faster.”
