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Vettel & Raikkonen still eye Ferrari Silverstone improvement

Vettel says Mercedes race pace looked strong, while second-fastest Raikkonen unhappy with his form on the hard tyre

A practice pitstop for Sebastian Vettel at Silverstone on Friday
Image: A practice pitstop for Sebastian Vettel at Silverstone on Friday

Sebastian Vettel believes Ferrari must still improve their SF15-T around the fast sweeps of Silverstone despite splitting the Mercedes on the Friday timesheet.

After relatively disappointing race performances in Canada and Austria, when Ferrari failed to challenge Mercedes and were beaten to the final podium berth by Williams despite upgrades to their engine, Kimi Raikkonen and Vettel finished between the two W06s of Nico Rosberg and Lewis Hamilton on the Practice Two timesheet.

Ending up just three and a half tenths back on the lead Mercedes, Vettel was pleased to get through the day without reliability problems and is now seeking further car improvements ahead of qualifying.

“We didn’t have any issues on the car so we more or less got through everything that we wanted to do. We’re not entirely happy yet how the car feels,” he said after setting the third-quickest time of the day, a mere 0.020s behind Raikkonen.

“I think we can improve. We tried a couple of things to find out what was good and what was bad.”

Asked about Mercedes after the world champions’ large one second advantage all-but evaporated in the warmer afternoon session, Vettel replied: “I don’t know what happened to them, I saw the pace of their long run in the morning and they looked quick.

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Sky F1's Ted Kravitz guides you through the technical developments that have caught his eye following the first practice session ahead of the British GP

“Anything else would be a surprise. But if we can repeat it [the gap] tomorrow it will be good.”

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With his future at Ferrari into 2016 under increasing scrutiny, Raikkonen enjoyed a much-needed positive start to the weekend by proving the quicker of the two red cars in both sessions.

Still, the 35-year-old had mixed emotions at the end of the day after struggling on the harder of Pirelli's two tyres.

Asked if he was satisfied with his Friday, Raikkonen replied: “Yes and no. On the hard tyre I had a hard time for whatever reason. Whether it was one set or the tyre [I don’t know]. The medium seems to work okay for one lap."

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