Vettel hoping for ‘fair fight in qualy’

Ferrari were not able to match Mercedes in Singapore on Friday, but Sebastian Vettel is confident they can push their rivals hard in qualifying.

Lewis Hamilton was fastest during the second Free Practice session at the Marina Bay Circuit with a 1:38.773 while Vettel was the fastest Ferrari driver in third place, 0.818s behind.

Although Merc are expected to be the team to beat in Singapore, Vettel believes Ferrari can still up their game during qualy and on race day.

“I think Mercedes was very strong today, but I think you could see that not just on one lap and on the timings,” he told MotorsportWeek.com.

“I think overall, they were a bit faster. On our side, I think we can do better, I think we can improve the car, so let’s see.

“I think we should be closer than where we were today, hopefully we can be close, very close, maybe have a fair fight in qualy tomorrow.”

Vettel admits it wasn’t the smoothest of sessions, but feels they “should be okay” for the rest of the weekend once they make tweaks to their set-up.

He added on Crash.net: “Balance [was lacking]. Just to distribute the grip a bit differently, I’m suffering a bit with the front, then on long runs everything was getting a bit too hot and sliding a bit too much.

“Our laps on the short run were not very clean because we got traffic I think both of us, so not great to judge, but overall I think we can fine tune the balance, improve the car, and then we’ll see what comes.

“Difficult to say where Red Bull was today, I don’t know if their runs were clean. So tomorrow I think in qualifying you have enough tyres and enough shots to have a fair say. We’ll see. It should be okay. I hope we’re not too far out.”

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