Sebastian Vettel is confident Ferrari will not encounter the same tyre issues it faced in last month's Spanish Grand Prix.
Ferrari struggled for pace during the race in Spain relative to Mercedes and Vettel was forced to make an extra stop due to excessive tyre wear. The German will start on the ultra-softs, while Lewis Hamilton and Valtteri Bottas -- who start from the front row of the grid -- start on the more durable super-soft tyre.
"Well, I think for tomorrow, it's not Barcelona, the track's not easy on tyres but we saw yesterday that we had pretty good long runs and no problems with the tyres, so yeah,'' Vettel said. "Obviously we also start on a different set, so I don't wish for an extra stop, compared to the others. The pitlane is quite long here. But we'll see.
"First we focus on the start and then we see the true pace in the race but it should be good for us. Tyres... then we see, obviously in Barcelona Mercedes was very strong, so couldn't go with them - but for here I hope it's going to be different.''
Vettel reckons without his mistakes in Q3 beating Bottas to second was possible.
"For us, qualifying started a bit slow; obviously with the conditions it was a little bit tricky,'' Vettel added. "Starting slow meaning it got better throughout the qualifying and yeah, I was confident I could improve a little bit for the final attempt. But already at the beginning I tried to push hard and probably pushed a little bit too much so I lost a little and yeah, then you're playing catch-up. I just didn't get a great feeling closing the lap. It wasn't as strong as the lap before.
"It was also slower. I thought that there was a tenth or maybe a tenth and a half, maybe enough to pip Valtteri, but obviously both of them improved. I think we can be happy with third.''