Judging by their comments, it would seem both Kimi Raikkonen and Sebastian Vettel aren't feeling too confident for the Monaco Grand Prix this weekend.
In FP1 Raikkonen seemed to have great difficulty holding temperature in his tyres, suggesting he'll be unable to get the maximum performance out of them. Raikkonen commented, “The feeling with the car today was pretty ok, obviously there are some small issues but they are more related to the tyres: it’s difficult to make them warm up, especially the front tyres, but overall it’s not too bad. In order to get the tyres working, it would have been nice to see how the Super-softs work, anyway I think they are much easier."
Both Vettel and Raikkonen are also airing a hint that with the rain holding up running during FP2 they're on the back foot a little with set up, which also suggests both drivers aren't entirely familiar with the new updates on the SF15-T - which were introduced in Barcelona. Vettel seemed to downplay Monaco as race to measure themselves against Mercedes, “We have to wait and see until Saturday to understand more and we’ll only find out on Sunday how close we are to Mercedes. I think we can’t take Monaco as a reference, it’s for the nature of the track that everybody is a bit closer, but for sure I hope to reduce the gap even more."
Are both drivers preparing themselves for a mid field result this weekend? It seems that Ferrari brought so many updates to Barcelona it will take a couple of Grand Prix for the team to really understand the car's true performance and, more importantly, for Vettel and Raikkonen to achieve a comfortable balance which compliments their driving styles.
Do you think Ferrari are already losing their grip on staying with Mercedes, or perhaps in a few more races the car will be performing better? Please share your thoughts or other views or opinions you have below!
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