Vettel Confirms Ferrari Halting Upgrades

Sebastian Vettel confirmed that Ferrari will ditch their upgraded floor at the Mexican Grand Prix after struggling throughout Friday practice. The Scuderia will stick to their old spec, despite Red Bull setting searing pace, having seemingly copied the concept at the Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez.

Ferrari saw chances to use the new floor curtailed at the United States Grand Prix last week due to Friday’s torrential weather.

When Vettel and Kimi Raikkonen stripped more upgrades off the car they found great pace, with Raikkonen going on to win.

Red Bull were the pacesetters in Mexico on Friday, Max Verstappen and Daniel Ricciardo more than a second clear of anyone in practice as they ran fins on their floors apparently glued on after the team spotted Ferrari’s and decided to do likewise.

“It was an interesting morning,” Vettel told reporters. “We learned a lot and we’re sticking to the old package.

“I don’t think we had a tidy lap. Everybody’s sort of on the limit with tyres and trying to get them to work in order to slide less, with the exception maybe of the Red Bulls.

“The difficulty is you don’t have any grip, so we’re sliding a lot.

“The problem is if you don’t have any grip and downforce, because the air’s so thin, you don’t get the tyres to work and when the tyres don’t work it’s really tricky.

“So that’s why I think sometimes you can see quite big jumps in lap time.”

With Qualifying set to start in a few hours, Vettel will need everything in his arsenal to salvage something from the 2018 title fight.

So far, the track seems to be suiting the Red Bull duo and Mercedes seem to have some problems. Red Bull driver Daniel Ricciardo even predicted a 6-way fight for pole position.