Race - Singapore GP report: Ferrari

Fernando Alonso finished just off the podium in fourth place after a great battle with the two Red Bull drivers, while his Scuderia Ferrari team-mate Kimi Raikkonen finished eighth, losing two places on the last two laps having to deal with seriously worn out tyres.

There was drama before the start, as Nico Rosberg failed to get off the grid on the formation lap and had to start from pit lane. When the lights went out, Alonso got away very well, going second in the first corner. However, the Spaniard overshot as the track went left and therefore had to cede the place to Sebastian Vettel.

Before half-distance, Fernando’s situation improved as he moved up to second behind Hamilton, the clear leader. However, after a collision between Sergio Perez and Adrian Sutil brought out the Safety Car, this worked against the two Ferraris, who unlike the Red Bulls, were still on the Supersofts and had to bring forward their stops to make the most of the situation.

For the final 24 laps, Fernando found himself between Sebastian Vettel and Daniel Ricciardo, with no way of getting past them. Further back, Raikkonen moved up to sixth before being overtaking by Jean-Eric Vergne (Toro Rosso) and Sergio Perez (Force India) who were on fresher tyres. The Finn therefore came home eighth. Lewis Hamilton took the 29th win of his career and thus moves into a 3 point lead over Nico Rosberg. The next race is in Japan in a fortnight’s time.

Fernando Alonso

“With hindsight, it’s easy to ask oneself how things would have gone if I hadn’t made a
mistake at the start and the Safety Car hadn’t come out when it did, but overall I’m
pleased with this weekend, because we were competitive and were able to fight with
the front runners. Sometimes, a Safety Car can help but I think that today on this front,
we were a bit unlucky, because at that moment, we were trying to make sure of second
place and our strategy was good. We didn’t have much of an alternative, because if we
had stayed out, the probability was that the stop for the Softs would have cost us more
places. Even if in the end, I wasn’t able to get past, the fact we were competitive right to
the finish confirms we have made a step forward. Now, in Suzuka, a real circuit, we will
have a clearer picture of where we are.”

Kimi Raikkonen

“Today’s race was really frustrating, because despite the fact we were quick, we weren’t
able to finish where we wanted. My start was good, I moved up a few places and
everything was working perfectly. After the first stop, I lost a place to Felipe and from
then on, I found myself stuck behind a Williams for the entire race. Unfortunately, every
time I managed to get close, I lost aero performance on the rear and on top of that, tyre
degradation was very high. It’s a real shame I was never able to run my race, even if we
already knew that straightline speed is our opponents’ strong point. I’m not happy with
eighth place, but on the positive side, we have seen improvements this weekend. I’m
sure that if, from now on, we don’t have problems, things will go better.”