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Raikkonen qualified third after team-mate Vettel fell by the wayside in Q1 with an MGU-H failure. While Kimi’s life was undoubtedly made easier as a result of his team-mate’s demise, the Finn had been faster in FP3 and saw off a strong challenge from Valtteri Bottas to claim the position.
Despite it being his best qualifying position so far this year, Kimi said: “We still have some work ahead, obviously we are not happy to finish third in the grid but in the race we’lll try to do better. It’s hard to say what will happen tomorrow but at least we did a better qualifying than normal and we’ll be in a better position for the race.”
Ferrari, running an upgraded power unit this weekend, have looked strong throughout the event. Nico Rosberg & Lewis Hamilton have both commented on how Ferrari appear to have raised their game, and Kimi says that the weekend has been smooth sailing so far:
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“The car has been feeling good all weekend. We had no problems, apart from the one Sebastian had in qualifying, and everything ran smoothly. We have been making sure that all the small details were correct, we have learned from the past difficult races how small things can make a big change and enable you to get the result you want . So far it has been ok but tomorrow is the big day. I expect that we can be stronger and challenge for a competitive race . The weather has been tricky these days, so it will be a bit of uncertain tomorrow. Tonight we are going to analyse a lot of data and will try to make the right decisions”.
While Raikkonen will be keen to challenge the Mercs, Sebastian Vettel faces a much tougher task. After falling out of contention during Q1, Vettel was called in front of the stewards to answer charges of overtaking Roberto Merhi under red flag conditions in FP3. He was found guilty, and hit with a five place grid and three penalty points.
“Right from the start we didn’t have the full power available, so when I went out for the first run we tried to fix the problem, but we couldn’t.” said Vettel afterwards.
“Due to the lack of power we couldn’t make it further. For sure we have to investigate but I don’t think that there’s anything to do with the engine. I think it has more to do with the electronical side, but I am confident that we can fix the problem in time for tomorrow’s race. We have plenty of tyres and anything can happen. We have a strong car and a strong pace, so I should be able to score good points. The problem we had this morning in FP3 was completely unrelated.”
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Monday, July 6, 2015
