Vettel hopes the "bold" approach will pay off in the race

The German saw his rival Mercedes take another lockout on the front row in Barcelona, ​​while he remained behind Valtteri Bottas (pole position) at 0.866 seconds from third place on the grid.

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But while aware that Mercedes had the advantage in the first round, he suggested that a different approach to that adopted by his team with his recently updated car could still pay off in the race.

"We tried a lot of things yesterday and again today, in different directions and we managed to get the most out of the car today, which was not enough," she said. he explained.

"We are certainly not satisfied, but I am very pleased with the approach, with the opportunity to try something daring: something that will eventually pay off, maybe not at less today, but I hope it will help us We hope this will put us in the right direction for the next two weeks. "

Vettel said he was surprised by the magnitude of Mercedes' advantage, which he said was exaggerated by the fact that his Ferrari is struggling in the tight final sector of Barcelona.

"Coming here we did not expect [the Mercedes gap] but I also think we seem to waste a lot of time in the last sector, "he said.

"It's clear that we seem to be faster in straight lines, so we're probably wearing a little less wing than them, but in the last sector, there are no straight lines. and we are struggling a bit to bring them together.

"It's not a very long sector with a few turns and especially a slower speed, that's where we seem to lose the most time.There are certainly homework, we know this track very well, everyone knows it but with the conditions today we were just to be able to match them. "

While the performances in Barcelona contrast sharply with the pace of Ferrari's winter testing, Vettel thinks nothing has changed, and that his team just needs to understand how to accelerate the pace of his 2019 challenger .

"We have to dig deep," he said. "This is not the first time we've lost, neither the second nor the third time, it's a constant trend that we seem to be losing in some places, regardless of weather, sun, clouds, tires and compounds, etc.

"We need to understand a little more, but if we had the solution, it would surely already be on the car."