Ferrari back in the midfield

Ferrari’s recent resurgence stalled in Valencia with neither car making it through to the final qualifying session.

Fernando Alonso qualified 11th and Felipe Massa 13th in a very tight Q2 session, Alonso missing out by just four thousandths of a second. While other top teams ran throughout Q2 using the soft tyres, Ferrari gambled and gave both cars a run on the medium tyre and just one go on the softs. The strategy failed, and left the team ruing a missed opportunity.

“This result is a cold shower, because our expectations were high and the car’s potential has also increased, to the extent that in Q2, we were only three tenths off the best,” said Alonso. “It’s easy to say now that with two runs on Softs in Q2 we would have made the cut, but maybe now we would be here lamenting the fact that we did not have two for Q3: it’s always easy to judge things after the fact.

“Now the race will naturally be tougher: the podium is out of reach and clearly, with Hamilton on the front row, it’s easy to expect that we will lose ground to him [in the Championship]. However, the race will be very long and will be run in even higher temperatures than today’s, which means everyone will have to be very careful when it comes to tyre management. Let’s hope that, starting from the clean side of the track I can quickly make up a few places and then we will try to also make the most of the two sets of new Softs we have left: that’s at least a small consolation after this far from positive afternoon.”

Alonso’s comments were echoed by Ferrari president Luca di Montezemolo: “Tyres are playing a decisive role in this championship and it’s up to us to make the best possible use of them.”