Scuderia Ferrari German driver Sebastian Vettel feels that Mercedes will be the team to beat at this weekend’s Belgian Grand Prix as Formula One hits the Circuit de Spa-Francorchamps, one of the fastest tracks on the F1 calendar. Mercedes and the Maranello team have been evenly-matched at the front of the field for much of the season so far, winning a combined ten races.
Mercedes appeared to pull clear in the development race with a dominant one-two finish at Silverstone in July, only for Scuderia Ferrari to strike back with victory in Hungary two weeks later. However, given the high-speed nature of Silverstone offering some similarities to this weekend’s race at Spa-Francorchamps, Sebastian Vettel thinks that Mercedes will be the team to beat and will most likely enjoy an edge over Ferrari as could be seen during the second practice session on Friday: “I think if we had to race at Silverstone again, I think we would do a lot better. We just didn’t get a very good weekend altogether. It is true that Mercedes is very strong there. The fact that it’s likely to be similar here, obviously for us makes it fairly straightforward. I think we have only to gain. Because of how strong they were at Silverstone and some similarities, I would say they are the favourites coming here.” – the German driver said, as reported by Stadio is an Italian national sports newspaper based in Rome Corriere dello Sport.
“But for sure we are not going to settle behind them. We’re going to attack, and we’ll see what we can do.” – Sebastian Vettel continued, before being once again asked to comment on his contract situation with Scuderia Ferrari, just a few days after Finnish driver Kimi Raikkonen was officially confirmed by the Maranello team for the 2018 Formula One championship: “I don’t know, we’ll see. At some point I think there will be news. But now we’re here, there’s no news yet, and the main focus now is not to focus on news, the main focus is to focus on the race. And that will be the same next week. So I don’t expect news in the next two weeks to be honest. If Kimi is happy, I’m happy! I think it’s the other way around as well. Obviously he’s had a troubled start to the season. The last couple of races have been a bit better. There’s no discussion about his talent or his speed. It’s nice to see that the team appreciates the work he is doing behind the scenes. As I said, it’s quite straightforward to work with him, I think everybody who knows him knows he’s quite straightfoward in this regard.” – Scuderia Ferrari’s German driver concluded.
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