Ferrari team principal Frederic Vasseur said their car’s balance isn’t as bad as Lewis Hamilton’s comment during practice made it seem.
Vasseur said the car appeared to have potential but wasn’t as competitive in the second session as the first. “We had very good pace this morning,” he told Sky. “We struggled a bit more in the afternoon.
“We had, I think, a decent lap with Charles before the mistake at turn seven, he was [gaining time]. But the target is to put a lap together and not to [only] do some good corners.
“Then we struggled a bit more at the beginning of each stint on the long stint. I think it was true for us, but true for a couple of other cars. The track was very dirty with a lot of marbles, as soon as you were out of the line and it was quite difficult to recover.”
Hamilton described his car as “undriveable” as he ended Friday practice in 11th place. His team mate Charles Leclerc, who was almost three-tenths of a second quicker, was fifth.
Vasseur admitted “the comments were a bit extreme on the radio today” but said Hamilton’s pace was more encouraging later in the session. “He did also a strong last stint with the soft, [with]in the lap times of the first two. It means that the car was not so horrible as he said on the radio.
“Again, the comments that they are doing when they are into the car for me, it’s not a drama as long as they [come] back to the truck and we have a constructive debrief. This is the most important.”
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Hamilton said the team’s performance the previous weekend left him hoping his car would feel better at the Circuit de Catalunya. However he revealed the team discovered a problem with his car during the session.
“You have a weekend in Monaco where all of a sudden the car feels great, honestly I thought the car was going to be good today,” he said. “It wasn’t too bad in P1 but P2 was quite a lot worse.
“So naturally that’s frustrating for everyone. But we had some problem which meant we were losing some downforce so hopefully with that fixed for tomorrow we’ll be in a better place.”
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