Vettel: Ferrari working to fix struggles with small tyre window

Sebastian Vettel acknowledges that Ferrari is struggling with Pirelli's small tyre window this year more than its rivals.

The Scuderia outfit has watched Mercedes take five one-two finishes at the opening five races of the 2019 season, while Ferrari has three third-place finishes to its name.

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Vettel admits that the SF90 is not fast enough to compete against Mercedes, but also affirmed that the Maranello squad is finding difficulty in understanding the Pirelli tyres.

"There's always a possibility to learn," Vettel said ahead of the Monaco Grand Prix. "Tyres are different this year and it looks like we're struggling a bit more than others.

"To be completely honest, the tyres are very very sensitive and extremely difficult to understand.

"It's a combination of things. One our car is not quick enough, which is something we learned more than once. But also, unfortunately, the window is so small, extremely small to hit.

"You can see sometimes big differences in lap times across the same driver or inside the same team. It's the feedback we get from inside the car from the tyres. Sometimes it feels better, sometimes it feels worse."

Ferrari working to improve long-term

Vettel insisted that Ferrari is working hard to overcome the issues so that it helps the team in the long term and in its fight against Mercedes for the world championship. 

"There is a lot of engineering science trying to overcome these random scenarios. We're doing our best, but also other people are understanding more than we do currently.

"But as I said previously. We're trying to understanding more and more for tomorrow, but also in the next weeks and going forward and looking forward to next year."

Mercedes already holds a 96 point gap to Ferrari in the constructors' championship, while Vettel is 48 points down on the drivers' championship leader Lewis Hamilton.