Sebastian Vettel has denied that Red Bull have closed the gap to pack-leader Mercedes, stating that the gap is still pretty much the same as it was at the season opener in Australia.
Red Bull are the only team other than Mercedes to win a race this season at Canada, after both Mercedes suffered MGU-K problems which meant they were 160 horse power down on the rest of the field, which allowed Vettel’s team-mate Daniel Ricciardo to close up and take the lead with only a handful of laps remaining.
However, despite the victory, Vettel is still certain that Red Bull have a lot of work to do before they can return to winning once again, as they have so easily in the past four years.
Red Bull’s team principal has said that Red Bull are about two months behind schedule, but are finding more performance from the Renault engine which has been the worst in terms of reliability for the teams who run them.
Vettel however, does believe that Red Bull are close enough to fight for victories yet, on solid pace.
“Right now the gap is very big and we haven’t really closed the gap since race one,” the German told Sky Sports News.
“Obviously we have tried lots of stuff to improve, but they are doing the same thing.
“We are waiting for bigger steps to happen to close the gap even more which I think at the end of the season we can judge a lot better, then we know what we can do over the winter.”
However, the FIA have recently said that the Front-and-rear Interconnected Suspension or (FRIC) that Mercedes have benefited greatly from, is going to be possibly banned, starting at next weekends German GP. This will be welcome news for Vettel and his Red Bull team as it is believed that Mercedes have been the greatest benefactors from this device, and will be the team to be hurt most from it being banned.
Vettel does not believe that the FRIC system being banned will be such a problem for Mercedes
“Obviously we know what we are running, we don’t know what they are running, but it is pretty clear what the FIA have said so teams will will probably be more affected, others less,” he continued.
