Pirelli: “Vettel was not given an advantage”

During the tests pirelli, Sebastian Vettel had the opportunity to accumulate 2000 km of driving with the SF70H to study the behavior of the 2017 tires. Mercedes had stressed that its pilots had not run more than 250 km.

« Yes Sebastian [Vettel] did a lot of testing, replies Paul Hembery, the boss of Pirelli. It was very dense and he gave us a lot of feedback. We thank him for that. That’s what we wanted: good drivers who give us good feedback. 

« He didn't know what he was testing, they were blind tests. It may have helped him psychologically, but I doubt he was helped in practice. » 

Questions regarding the understanding of the tires were raised after the Russian and Monaco Grand Prix where Mercedes suffered much more with the tires than Ferrari.

 « Mercedes' problems are linked to certain circuits: in Barcelona it was going well, and it will also be very good at Silverstone and Spa. It is on circuits with less grip that they will suffer more. »