Arrivabene: Fighting for the title I think it is too much

After being thoroughly trounced by Mercedes at the Spanish Grand Prix, mixed messages have emerged from the Ferrari camp with Sebastian Vettel declaring he is still in the title fight while team principal Maurizio Arrivabene doubts his team are championship contenders.

Speaking after Ferrari finished third and fifth in Spain, Arrivabene said, “To fight for the championship, I think it is too much. The gap to Mercedes is there and we need to analyze our data to understand the reasons.”

At the same time Vettel was not throwing in the towel, and said after the race in Barcelona, “I am in the fight. We are able to improve our car. We have some steps coming. We need to start turning things around very soon but we are pushing hard to beat them.”

Ferrari had some major updates for their car at Circuit de Catalunya, but the impact on closing the gap to Mercedes was not evident.

Arrivabene admitted, “The numbers tell us that the new solutions are good, the reality shows that they are not good enough. We did make a step forward, but it was supposed to be a jump. I am not blaming anyone in particular, I am taking my own responsibilities. We need to work harder.”

Vettel was more positive than his boss in his assessment of the situation, “I think we have done a step forward as a team. It doesn’t really show here but I am quite confident we will be stepping up our game again in the next couple of races and I look forward to that.”

“If you take the average of the first five races you have the reality. Some tracks you are better than others. For some reason, we were not that competitive here even though we have improved the car.”

“I am not happy with the result in terms of the gap to the front but we can be happy with the points,” added the quadruple world champion.

His teammate Raikkonen had an out of sorts weekend and ultimately decided against using the new updates as he struggled to find the sweet spot. In the end he finished fifth in the race after qualifying seventh.

Vettel was asked if the latest updates to the SF15-T were a step forward, “It is a good question. If you look at the gap in the race, it was the biggest we had so far this season so the conclusion could be it is not good. But we are confident we are going in the right direction.”

“We have to find the reason for the gap. Either the track didn’t suit us or the conditions really suited Mercedes, I think it is one of them and I am looking forward to being a bit closer to them again in Monaco,” concluded the quadruple F1 world champion.