Sebastian Vettel out of F1 British GP first practice

Sebastian Vettel has been forced to miss opening practice for the British Grand Prix after Ferrari detected an issue with his Formula 1 car.

The four-time world champion completed an installation lap before returning to the Ferrari garage, where the team discovered a problem with the intercooler system on Vettel’s SF1000.

Vettel’s car was spotted up on the jacks as Ferrari mechanics investigated the rear-end, before the team confirmed a full strip down was required, meaning the German will have to sit out the remainder of FP1.

Ferrari hopes to resolve the issue in time for this afternoon’s second practice session at Silverstone.

"We have detected something wrong with the intercooler system on Seb’s car so we have to strip the car down and check, to be ready for FP2”, a Ferrari spokesperson confirmed.

It marks the latest setback for Ferrari, which has endured a woeful start to the delayed 2020 season after taking the wrong aerodynamic direction with its latest challenger.

The Italian outfit appears to have slipped into the midfield pack and was anticipating further struggles at Silverstone this weekend while it continues to try and better understand its SF1000 package.

“I think we expect two quite difficult weekends on paper though, but I always like to try and be optimistic, so I’ll have the same mindset. going into the weekend, but realistically I think it will be difficult,” Charles Leclerc said ahead of the weekend.

Vettel added: “I think on paper it is not the track where we should be strongest with the current package that we have but then we are here to race, I think I always look forward to be on the grid and what we can do.

“There’s always decisions that need to be taken during the race, strategy and so it doesn’t look like rain for this weekend but we are in the UK so we never know, it’s probably where rain was born! I guess we are the underdog but maybe we can still have a good fight.”