Sebastian Vettel: “Slippery track, we need to improve the car”

Fourth place behind Nico Hulkenberg for Sebastian Vettel, at the end of the first day of Free Practice at Hot Tub . The pilot of Ferrari, fifth in the morning with the soft tyre, preceded the Force India di Perez , Ferrari of his teammate, who finished seventh, on a day where both Red cars suffered significantly from the high track temperatures.

“I think we'll see over the weekend how the supersoft tires will perform but I think they will behave well and the strategy should be good,” explained the German at the end of the day, who like Williams, Toro Rosso, Renault, Sauber and Haas will have at his disposal seven sets of red compound this weekend. “Today was complicated because given the heat the track was very slippery but I don't think this depends on which compound you have, it's like that for everyone, we'll see. We need to improve the car which isn't to the point we would like, so we can work on it further."

“It's difficult to say if we will still have problems in qualifying, we hope not and that we have learned from the past,” added the four-time world champion. “Usually hotter qualifying conditions suit us better: the lap on the supersofts wasn't special but it was still good. It's not easy to judge also because Kimi didn't have a traffic-free lap either. We could be faster tomorrow because we can improve the car, however they are complicated conditions both for the flying lap and for the long runs: many cars slipped and struggled to make the tires last."

“I think we can be positive at the end of this first day. I'm not completely happy, as you can see we struggled a little with the balance of the car, we didn't have great sensations but it depends on us, on me and on the team to work on this and improve by tomorrow", he concluded Hag.