F1 News

Vettel feels Ferrari “spirit is right”

Vettel feels Ferrari “spirit is right”

13-03-2019 09:23
1

Bevan Youl

Sebastian Vettel has said that he feels the “spirit is right” at Ferrari after some big changes were made to the team over the winter period before testing last month.

Ferrari and Vettel looked in contention to pick up their first Championship last season, but a string of errors in the second half saw them tail off and ultimately hand it to Mercedes and Lewis Hamilton.
 
Over the winter break the Scuderia replaced Maurizio Arrivabene with Mattia Binotto taking the role of technical director, while promoting and swapping Charles Leclerc, after an impressive season with Sauber (now Alfa Romeo), with Kimi Raikkonen.
 
Vettel spoke at the F1 season launch event, saying: “It’s a big change but Mattia has been with the team longer than most of the people that work for Ferrari so he is not a new face.

“I think people know him and have learned to trust him. For sure it’s a new challenge for the whole team.

“We try to turn the page - we obviously had our weaknesses last year and we tried to fix those and do much better this year.

“So far the spirit is right and the team is on track, the car feels good, so let’s see how we start here.”

New technical director Binotto also said: “We did our homework during the winter and we are now all focused on the season.

“It’s always nice to start here in Australia but it will be a very long and tough season, so just being focused.”