Vettel confident Mercedes will up its pace for qualifying - MotorSportsTalk

Sebastian Vettel believes that Mercedes remains the team to beat in Singapore despite only finishing third-fastest in practice on Friday.

Red Bull driver Daniil Kvyat tore up the formbook to finish as the fastest driver in FP2 on Friday night, leading Ferrari’s Kimi Raikkonen at the top of the timesheets.

Mercedes drivers Lewis Hamilton and Nico Rosberg could only finish fourth and seventh respectively, while Vettel ended the day fifth-fastest.

The FP2 results prompted many to question whether Mercedes could face a serious challenge in Singapore this weekend, including Hamilton, who admitted that Ferrari and Red Bull had closed the gap.

However, Vettel thinks that Mercedes will show its hand on Saturday in qualifying and still be the team to beat at the front of the field.

“It is always difficult to make predictions after the Friday sessions,” Vettel said. “In general, I think it was a good day for us. The car seems to work, but other than that I think we can still improve.

“I was not entirely happy with my short-runs, so for qualifying we still have to improve a bit, but for the race it looked okay. The pace seems to be there, but it’s also fair to say that I haven’t seen too much of the data yet. So we will see.

“Obviously, we can expect the Mercedes to be quick tomorrow. I don’t know what happened to them today, they looked a bit slow, but for sure they will change it for tomorrow. We know that the Mercedes don’t show everything on Friday, and as expected the Red Bulls are fairly quick here as well.

“So tomorrow it will be tight. I look forward to Saturday, I like the circuit, it is a big challenge: there’s a lot of corners, it is a long lap and it’s not easy to get everything right. For tomorrow we should be a bit quicker, but it is only Friday and we should keep our feet on the ground.”

Raikkonen was a man of few words after practice despite finishing second-fastest, but was pleased with the work that he had completed.

“It was a normal practice session,” Raikkonen said. “We were doing our normal things and everything worked more or less okay. There is always something we can improve but overall the car was behaving well.

“As usual, Mercedes will be very strong and also Red Bull seems to be quite quick here, but today it’s only Friday and it’s hard to judge from the lap times. Hopefully tomorrow we’ll have a good day and then we’ll go from there.”

Qualifying for the Singapore Grand Prix is live on CNBC and Live Extra from 9am ET on Saturday.

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An IndyCar executive said there is “absolutely” disappointment that its long-awaited video game recently was delayed beyond its target date, but the series remains optimistic about the new title.

“Well, I don’t know how quick it will be, but the whole situation is important to us,” Penske Entertainment president and CEO Mark Miles said during a news conference Monday morning to announce IndyCar’s NTT title sponsorship. “Motorsport Games has spent a lot of money, a lot of effort to create an IndyCar title. What we’ve seen of that effort, which is not completely obvious, is very reassuring.

“I think it’s going to be outstanding. That’s our shared objective, that when it is released, it’s just widely accepted. A great credit both to IndyCar racing, the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, something that our fans love.”

In June 2021, IndyCar announced a new partnership with Motorsport Games to create and distribute an IndyCar video game for the PC and Xbox and PlayStation consoles in 2023.

But during an earnings call last week, Motorsport Games said the IndyCar game had been delayed to 2024 to ensure high quality.

Somewhat compounding the delay is that IndyCar’s license for iRacing expired after the end of the 2022 season because of its exclusive agreement with Motorsport Games.

That’s resulted in significant changes for IndyCar on iRacing, which had provided a high-profile way for the series to stay visible during its 2020 shutdown from the pandemic. (Players still can race an unbranded car but don’t race on current IndyCar tracks, nor can they stream).

That’s helped ratchet up the attention on having a video game outlet for IndyCar.

“I wish we had an IndyCar title 10 years ago,” said Miles, who has been working with the organization since 2013. “We’ve been close, but we’ve had these I think speed bumps.”

IndyCar is hopeful the Motorsports Game edition will be ready at the start of 2024. Miles hinted that beta versions could be unveiled to reporters ahead of the time “to begin to show the progress in a narrow way to make sure we’ve got it right, to test the progress so that we’re ready when they’re ready.”

It’s been nearly 18 years since the release of the most recent IndyCar video game for console or PC.

“(We) better get it right,” Miles said. “It’s something we’re very close to and continue to think about what it is to make sure we get it over the line in due course.”