Formula 1

A tale of two sessions for Ferrari in China

2 Mins read

Scuderia Ferrari are no doubt feeling two very different emotions after qualifying for the Chinese Grand Prix as one driver finished third and another down in sixth.

Third, and hoping to add to his win in Malaysia, was Sebastian Vettel. While he was a significant distance off Nico Rosberg in second – 0.860 seconds to be exact – the German is feeling confident that something could happen on Sunday.

Vettel, the four time world champion, said: “All in all it was a good session for us. We had only one real run in Q3 and were able to nail this run and put the car on P3. It is a shame that we couldn’t put both cars side by side. As far as I was told, Kimi had some issues with traffic on the warm up lap and with these temperatures everybody is relaying on the out lap, to nail it on the flying one. The pace is there and I am very happy with this.

“We have to keep our feet on the ground, Mercedes is very quick, and for a reason, they have a great car and both drivers seem to do a good job. So this makes them difficult to beat. For us, though, I am happy where we are and I hope we can be a bit closer tomorrow. We also have to watch out for others. Never underestimate Williams, also Red Bull seems to be better this weekend: it will be a long race.”

However, the ice cool Finn – Kimi Raikkonen – melted in the high temperatures of Shanghai and when it mattered he was fighting his car all round the track. A sixth place start was confirmed when both the Williams entries split him away from team mate Vettel.

Needless to say the former Ferrari champion was unhappy with the result: “I’m disappointed with the result, my car was behaving pretty well most of the time but in in my last run I was not able to put a good lap together. For some reason the handling of the car was different, more loose than in the previous laps and slippery on the rear especially in the first three corners. It’s a shame because in the previous sessions I had been satisfied with the behaviour.

“My starting position for the race tomorrow it’s not ideal , but I expect to have the same good car we’ve had so far. We’ll try to do our best and I’m sure that with a good start we can extract the best result out of the situation.”

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3rd Year Multimedia Journalism Student at Teesside University, interested in motorsport and writing about it as well. I'm also a qualified pilot but I don't mention that much.
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