MONTREAL, Canada -- On the basis of Friday practice, Sebastian Vettel does not see himself as a contender for victory even though Ferrari teammate Kimi Raikkonen set the second fastest time.
Vettel struggled for pace in both practice sessions and finished the day 0.787s off the fastest time set by Max Verstappen and 0.657s off Raikkonen. With a new engine upgrade fitted to Vettel's car this weekend, Ferrari was expected to be one of the favourites in Canada but Vettel was not happy with his performance after he was restricted to just 17 laps in second practice due to car issues at the start of the session.
"Today we're not the favourites," Vettel said. "Kimi I think was happier on one lap so probably he's one of the favourites, I'm not, but we'll see tomorrow.
"I don't know, I haven't seen much of the times of the others so it's difficult to read yet. I think we need a little bit of time to understand the full picture but as I said I'm not yet happy with the car. If that comes together I think we can do quite a big jump and then hopefully the engine and putting it all together will help us to be there tomorrow."
Although the day did not go to plan, Vettel admitted he was also to blame for the lack of performance after failing to find a rhythm around the 4.3km circuit.
"It was a bit different, it was a bit mixed today so I'm not entirely happy with the feel inside the car yet. Some things that we tried and some things that I think we need to work on. Also myself didn't get the rhythm yet so missing a little bit of the laps but overall we tried to go through the programme as good as we could."
