Vettel concerned about Ferrari damaging tyres more than rivals

Sebastian Vettel thinks Ferrari are clearly damaging its tyres more than their rivals so far in Japan.

Ferrari's strategy for the weekend is already an aggressive one, choosing the maximum of 10 sets of supersoft tyres for Vettel and his team-mate Kimi Raikkonen.

Now Scuderia can only elect from just one set of new softs and one set of new mediums for the rest of the weekend, which leaves their situation far from ideal.

Vettel was 0.833 seconds away from his title rival Lewis Hamilton in FP2 and the German admitted that Ferrari's tyre situation is not perfect.

"Today I think we were probably both of us sliding a bit too much, and therefore damaging the tyres a bit more than others," Vettel admitted to Autosport. "But I think overall, it has been OK.

Vettel clearly felt that Ferrari could improve this weekend, but the four-time world champion didn't make any bold predictions about beating the Silver Arrows this weekend.

"We know what we are doing, I don't think we tried something different to other Fridays. I think we know what the car can do," Vettel carried on. "We need to focus on that and try to get everything out to put us in the best possible position.