Sebastian Vettel was unperturbed after being only third fastest on Friday afternoon in Valencia, behind Fernando Alonso and Lewis Hamilton.
In the morning Vettel experimented with a car in ‘Silverstone legal’ spec, and he was only16th.
Although the consensus is that the new engine mapping rules – starting with the qualifying clampdown in Valencia – will hurt RBR more than most, Vettel downplays the changes.
“To be honest I can understand that this is news to everyone, and everyone wants to get some information,” said the German. “I can only say that it will affect everyone, when the rules change, but I don’t see us suffering more than other people, to be honest. Maybe we will be surprised, maybe not. What I can judge now I think we have nothing to be afraid of.”
Regarding his morning experiment, Vettel said: “Sometimes you try different things. If you’re not in the top five or the top 10, clearly you’re running a different programme from the others, so that was this morning. In the afternoon we were more or less on the same pages as the rest. As you’ve seen, it’s very tight. I had a good feeling, to be honest, it was much better than in the morning.
“It is a Friday, and it’s always difficult to see what other people do. The important thing is we are there or thereabouts. It is tight here. Last year obviously we had a very good race, but there were a couple of people, Lewis and Fernando in particular, who were very close to us. The race unfolded a bit differently so we had a nice time at the front.
“It changes circuit by circuit. You can’t really say that’s team A, team B, team C. Sometimes the gaps are bigger, sometimes they are much closer. I give you the perfect example – we go to Australia, we are quite a bit quicker than the rest, we come to Malaysia, and we really had to push hard to qualify on pole. That’s two weeks, nothing was changed on the cars, it was just a different track. That’s how it goes. That’s why here as we expected it will be very tight.”
Adam Cooper F1 