F1: Ferrari drivers encouraged by new engine

Sebastian Vettel believes Ferrari's final Formula 1 engine upgrade of the season for the Italian Grand Prix has made a positive start after the opening day of Monza practice.

Ferrari spent its three remaining development tokens on an engine upgrade ahead of its home race, and it ended Friday's practice running with comfortably the second fastest car behind Mercedes, and ahead of Red Bull.

"It's a new engine, it's doing what it's supposed to, so that is positive," said Vettel. "On Friday you try lots of different things. We'll see a bit more tomorrow.

"We've had worse Fridays. Mercedes is looking very strong, but we can focus on ourselves and we can do a good job."

Related Stories

Vettel finished FP2 just 0.453s off the pace set by Lewis Hamilton for Mercedes, and he believes Ferrari has some refining to do to get even closer over the weekend.

"The feeling is not yet right, we need to adjust the car to find some performance," Vettel added. "We've done a bit, we can do more, we can improve on where we are.

"We have a decent speed, and we can take more out of the car. It feels good – the first impression is good. We just need to make it feel good in every corner."

Teammate Kimi Raikkonen, who finished the session 0.6s adrift of Hamilton, had his FP2 programmdisrupted by a cut to a set of tires, but he was happy with Ferrari's day overall.

"There are always things to improve but the car is feeling pretty OK," said Raikkonen. "The first practice was quite good, the second was a bit messy with tires and yellow flags.

"We have to check if [the engine] can improve our performance but it's normal progress really.It's a small thing but it's in the right direction. Overall it was not too bad."

Originally on Autosport.com