Vettel: We tried things but they didn’t really work…

Sebastian Vettel concedes Ferrari’s attempts to fix its pace problems during practice for the Monaco Grand Prix has not produced the gains the team hoped for to close the gap to Mercedes.

The Ferrari driver ended FP2 third on the timesheet but a significant 0.763s off pace-setter Lewis Hamilton in the Mercedes.

Following a painful Spanish Grand Prix where Ferrari accepted his 2019 Formula 1 car wasn’t performing as expected, Vettel says the trend hasn’t be reversed in Monaco so far as its updates and setup tweaks failed to provide key improvements.

“We tried a lot of things, they didn’t really work so it was not that productive,” Vettel said. “Overall we are struggling a bit, obviously lacking a bit of pace compared to Mercedes, struggling a bit to get the tyres to really work, so a bit of work ahead of us.

“It’s a bit of everything, so not exactly what you’d like around here. You’d like to know what the car is going to do so you can anticipate a bit more. But I’m sure come Saturday things should calm down. Maybe it’s a bit warmer as well, it could help us.”

With his Ferrari not responding to how he had hoped Vettel says his confidence to fully push around the tight Monte Carlo track isn’t at the level he wants but remains optimistic for pace gains ahead of Saturday’s qualifying.

“Not yet the full level of confidence. Overall a tricky day,” he said. “Tricky to get the tyres in the right window, we struggled maybe a bit more than other people.

“But it’s not the first time we saw this in practice, so looking forward to Saturday we have a bit of time now to try a couple of things and go through some stuff.”