Qualifying - US GP report: Ferrari

Team quotes

By Franck Drui

22 October 2016 - 22:14
Qualifying - US GP report: Ferrari

Today’s qualifying session at the Circuit of the Americas in Austin was closely contested. In the end, Kimi Raikkonen was fifth fastest with a time of 1.36.131, while team-mate Sebastian Vettel was right behind in sixth with a best lap of 1.36.358. Starting from pole will be Lewis Hamilton, who posted a 1.34.999 in his Mercedes.

Kimi Raikkonen

“Obviously we cannot be pleased with where we finished today, looking at the time difference to the front. We did what we could, but our position on the grid is far from ideal. This is the reality today and now we have to be stronger in the race. Yesterday we struggled a bit to find the right set up: we changed small things here and there and today the handling of the car was pretty good. We lack speed in the lap and to go faster we need more overall grip. Tomorrow is going to be a long race, the long run was not too bad, so I expect the car we had today to be better tomorrow. For sure we are going to do our best and hopefully we are going to have a strong race.”

Sebastian Vettel

”Qualifying was not so good, hopefully the race will go better. Surely we can try and look at different things, learn from today, go forward, and for sure we are not pleased with the gap to the cars ahead. It was not the best session for me: overall it was ok, the car felt fine, but in the end we were not just quick enough. For sure in Q3 I could have done a slightly better lap, but at the end of the day obviously we are missing a bit compared to the cars in front, so I think tomorrow could be a different day. Probably in my last lap I was a bit too aggressive. There remains a bit of a question mark at this point, at least on why we were so competitive in fast corners in Suzuka and here we are missing out; but then again we are missing out across all sectors. For tomorrow we’ll see, there’s always a chance to outsmart the people but I think we have to react on the fly. The strategy is set for the beginning, in terms the tires to start the race with, but we kept some new tire sets, so we’ll see. It could be an interesting race: tire degradation is always important, it could be playing a big role tomorrow.”

Search

Formula 1 news

Pics

Videos