Vettel “open-minded” about Ferrari’s Hungarian GP chances

Sebastian Vettel says he is “open-minded” about Ferrari’s chances of ending its Formula 1 victory drought at this weekend’s Hungarian Grand Prix.

The Scuderia is yet to claim a victory in the opening 11 rounds of the 2019 season and is enduring a winless run stretching back to last year’s United States Grand Prix, with the team and highest-placed driver Sebastian Vettel already appearing realistically out of title contention.

Ferrari has struggled to get on top of its complex SF90 challenger, which has proved to be the benchmark in terms of straight line speed, though it has struggled in corners due to a lack of downforce. The Hungaroring is a venue that on paper, at least, is not expected to favour Ferrari, but Vettel is remaining upbeat.

“I’m fairly open-minded,” Vettel said. “I think we should be ok but maybe we don’t come here as favourites with the track characteristics being a bit different. We maybe had the same thoughts on other places and turned out to do quite well.

“We need to get our stuff together, we have some new bits and hopefully that will put us some performance and a good direction for the next races in the second half of the season.

“We see the tendency that we are faster on the straights compared to the others but we pay the price in the corners,” he added.

“So, I think we have a rather efficient car but we are lacking a bit of downforce, so these two things added together explain also the picture and why sometimes it’s up and why it’s down.

“I feel we are making progress. I think Bahrain is an extreme where everything was working quite well and Charles was very competitive the whole weekend.

“After that we struggled a little bit to repeat for a while and then Canada came around the corner where it was a little more straightforward, Austria and Hockenheim, I think in terms of efficiency and being power-limited, we were able to make more of a difference than in other places but at the same time, as I said earlier, we were able to improve the car and we are going in the right direction.

“This one is exactly the opposite. Efficiency doesn’t matter and you just need downforce, so it will be interesting to see where we are.

“As I said, we are working hard and bringing new bits to try and understand further what we need to do with the car and where we need to go.”

Asked if he feels it is important for Ferrari to get a first win of 2019 before the summer break, Vettel replied: “It would be great to get some momentum but this is not a kindergarten and you can’t just pick the sweets that you like.

“You usually get what you deserve on a Sunday and we will see what’s left on the plate. If we are the first ones to arrive we pick what we want, if not we will see.”