Vettel: Ferrari failed to hit French GP target of big gain vs Mercedes

Ferrari's French GP update package included revised wings and brake ducts, but the new parts earned mixed reviews - particularly from Vettel, who said the team "reverted on most of them" before qualifying.

Charles Leclerc was more than six tenths slower than Mercedes polesitter Lewis Hamilton in the fastest Ferrari in qualifying, although Leclerc pressured Valtteri Bottas for second in the race, while Vettel recovered to fifth from seventh on the grid.

Vettel felt his result was the best he could have achieved and said he was "pretty happy" with that, but added "the bigger news for us is that Mercedes is still ahead of us, and we need to find a way to catch them".

"We wanted to close the gap to Mercedes by a decent amount, and we didn't," Vettel said.

"So in that regard we have to be honest, we failed. But I think nevertheless we tried everything we could, I think Charles' podium is a little bit of satisfaction.

"But as I said, the big objective was to come here and close the gap, but we had to unfortunately learn that our parts weren't working the way we were expecting them."

Vettel switched to a fresh set of soft tyres with two laps remaining and earned an extra point by setting the fastest lap of the race.

But his last-ditch attempt was just 0.024 seconds quicker than the previous-fastest time, set by race winner Hamilton on the final lap on worn hard tyres, which Vettel said illustrated how big Mercedes' advantage currently is.

"It was really tight. I don't know if we had a problem, I couldn't discharge the battery completely, otherwise it should've been a bit safer to get the fastest lap," he explained.

"But it also shows, I think, how much pace they have in hand. If they want to, they just go a lot faster.

"That means there's a lot of work for us, which we know from qualifying pace, etc. "So we need to make sure we get closer to put them under pressure."