Vettel: “It was a difficult first day for us here in China”

Sebastian Vettel believes that Red Bull is a little far from the positions that count at the moment, after the end of Friday's free practice, for the Chinese Grand Prix.

The three-time world champion ranked 10th in the afternoon session, 1.4 seconds behind the fastest driver, Ferrari driver Felipe Massa.

Vettel stressed that Red Bull does not have huge difficulties, but he is not happy with its speed.

“I think it was a difficult day for us,” he told reporters in the Shanghai paddock.

“I felt like I was struggling a bit more this afternoon, with the gap to the guys in front quite bigger than I'd like to see.”

“But I think we have two or three things we need to work on and we should be in better shape tomorrow.”

“It's not a disaster. It's not like we're in the dark, we know a little bit about what we have to do.”

“I don't have the answer right now, but we can look at the things we've done because once you spin, you try to follow your schedule, get as many spins and results as you can, so there's not a lot of time to analyze data during the session.”

Teammate Mark Webber was fifth fastest, 0,7sec ahead of his sister car, and feels there is little to worry about tire wear.

“Today was a good day for us, we had a good amount of kilometres,” Webber said.

“There are still some pretty fast cars out there, so nothing unusual from what we've seen previously in the championship.”

“I think we have a bit of work to do, but the car isn't that bad, we just have to work on the tyres.”