Ferrari and Sebastian Vettel arrived on a high for the Belgian Grand Prix, having won in Hungary before the summer break and hopes were that the Maranello outfit would continue the momentum and challenge Mercedes as the second half of the season got underway.
Despite running third in free practice on Saturday morning, the afternoon qualifying was a huge disappointemnt as vettel made a mistake when it mattered and ended the session ninth fastest, while teammate Kimi Raikkonen was forced to park his car with a technical issue during Q2.
"The last race [Hungary] does not matter now, but it's always disappointing when you consider I had a good feeling throughout," admitted Vettel after qualifying at Spa-Francorchamps.
"Probably the worst lap, or the worst part for us was the last one [in Q3]. We only had one set of tyres due to the red flag earlier [prompted by Raikkonen's stoppage], but still, I was fine until the last corner where I lost too much time."
"I went in a bit too deep, had a very poor exit and lost quite a lot of time, two tenths, not enough to go P3, but enough to be higher than P9."
"It was a costly mistake and I'm not happy with myself because it was very tight from P3 onwards. We were at the right end of it in Q2, but at the wrong end in Q3."
Despite the below par showing Ferrari are arguably still best of the rest behind the Silver Arrows duo, as the four times world champion acknowledged, "We have made impressive progress on our side. Our straight line speed is good, and that makes me fairly confident for the race as this is a place where you can overtake."
"I feel we're quicker than the cars in front, so we'll see how it pans out. Surely the target for both of us is to make progress. There’s a lot to be done, it’s a long race, the starting and first turn will be interesting and there could be some rain at some point."
"There’s nothing wrong so we’re expecting a progress,” concluded Vettel who lies third in the championship standings.
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