Sebastian Vettel is convinced it was the right decision for him to switch chassis for this weekend's Turkish Grand Prix after an encouraging opening day of practice on Friday.
The German complained about a lack of confidence in the car he had used in Monaco, and post-race analysis by the team uncovered a crack in the tub that could not be fixed in time. Vettel has now reverted to the chassis he used for the season-opening Bahrain Grand Prix – which has been nicknamed "Randy Mandy" – and said after practice in Istanbul that he was already feel more at home with it.
"Obviously, Spain was two weeks ago, but it feels more natural now so it was a good step to change it," explained Vettel. "Overall, I was quite happy with the balance. There was very little grip, because like always there is hardly anybody driving here apart from maybe some rich Turkey guys with their Ferraris, so not a lot of grip. So we need to do a lot of work and put some rubber down, but it should be better tomorrow."
Vettel was pleased with the early impressions of Red Bull Racing's F-duct, which ran for the first time in Turkey.
"I was quite happy with the day I think," he said. "It was a reasonable day and obviously a tough one because we introduced the F-duct. It is working but not quite 100 percent yet, but I think we need still some fine tuning so we need to have another look, but so far it looks good.
"McLaren looks very competitive around here, their system is working well so from what we see with the comparisons, they are quite a bit quicker than anyone else on the straights...surely the McLarens look quite a bit stronger and the others are not far off either, so it is tight."