Sebastian Vettel says Ferrari needs to get a grip on why it is so much further off the pace of Mercedes in qualifying than it is in races this year.
Vettel has been Mercedes' main competitor this season and at the Malaysian Grand Prix he won his first race for new team Ferrari. But despite Vettel challenging on Sundays, the gap has tended to be bigger in qualifying and he has only once outqualified a Mercedes this year in Bahrain.
"If I had the answer than I would go down straight away and tell everyone what to do, so obviously it's something we need to try and understand," Vettel said. "Whether there is something we can change with the approach we are taking with the set-up or there's something we need to change with the approach of how the car is made."
Vettel said there was no excuse for being consistently off the pace of Mercedes.
"Obviously there's a key to understanding it, because some part of the race is decided on Saturday and if we struggle in cooler conditions it can happen once, twice but we need to make sure we get on top of it, so if it keeps happening it's not an excuse, it's a mistake and it's bad for us so we need to work hard and make sure we fix it."