Vettel and Ferrari puzzled by difference in performance compared to Leclerc

“It was not by any means an easy race for me. At the start, I managed to retake my position from Lewis but then I began to struggle with the tyres and I had to stop earlier than planned. With the Medium tyres at first I managed to maintain a good pace, but then it dropped again," Vettel told motorsport-week. 

"I tried to keep second place but I couldn’t do it and at that point, the best thing to do was to pit once more for tyres and carry on without struggling so much. We have to understand why my car had such high tyre degradation and we will do a full analysis of the situation to understand the reasons why I did not feel comfortable."

Leclerc took pole and went on to win the Belgium Grand Prix. It was his first victory in Formula 1 and despite being beaten again, Vettel was pleased the other side of the garage managed to produce a good weekend. 

“It was definitely not a great weekend for me, but it was a great weekend for the team and that’s the main thing. So congratulations to all the guys in the team and well done to Charles for his first win," Vettel continued. 

Team boss Mattia Binotto confirmed his Ferrari team will continue to work and find out why Vettel suffered more. 

“Certainly Sebastian suffered a bit more from degradation this weekend, both on Friday and then in the race. It’s certainly down to the set-up as well. It’s certainly down to eventually… Seb normally is very good in managing tyres, especially in the very first laps somehow to use the tyres later in the stint," Binotto said. 

“So it’s something on which we will take care, try to understand and analyse, and certainly something that if we may learn it would improve ourselves in the future. But so far, no answer.”