KERS-problem for Raikkonen
Almost 650 kilometres completed by the Ferrari F60s of Felipe Massa and Kimi Raikkonen, in the two sessions of free practice that got the Malaysian Grand Prix weekend underway. The two Ferrari men ended the day at the top of the time sheet, with Kimi ahead of Felipe by little more than one tenth.
“These three hours of free practice would seem to offer a different view of the situation to the one we saw in Australia, which indeed was predictable given the characteristics of the two circuits,” commented Scuderia Team Principal, Stefano Domenicali. “Obviously, it’s much too early to say what is our level of performance when compared to all the other teams, but it is clear that it very finely balanced, given that the first fifteen in the second session are all covered by less than a second. Reliability remains the main priority: again today we had a technical problem which, if it had happened in the race, would have led to a retirement. Having said that, we must remain focused and calm, while allowing ourselves to look forward to the rest of the weekend being aware that we will have to fight hard to bring home a good result.”
Kimi Raikkonen: “This morning we had a problem with the KERS, which cost us a bit of time, but we managed to make up for most of it in the afternoon. We had felt that the situation here could be different to Melbourne, but it is still too early to say where we are up against the opposition. What we can be sure of is that when the car runs trouble-free, we are competitive. We hope we can do a good job in tomorrow’s qualifying.”
Felipe Massa: “The situation seems different compared to Australia, at least in terms of how the tyres operate. There is more grip and the softer tyres work well, even over a long distance. At the start of the long runs, I had a bit of understeer in the high speed corners and oversteer in the slow ones, but towards the end, the handling of the car improved continuously and I could set some great times. Clearly, looking at the time sheet today, there’s a slight feeling of relief, even if it has to be treated with caution: we are very motivated and the whole team will be trying its best.”
Luca Baldisserri: “This morning we experienced a short circuit in the kinetic energy recovery system fitted to Kimi’s car, which cost us a bit of time, but it didn’t compromise our completion of today’s programme. The main aim was to understand how the two types of Bridgestone tyre we have here perform, both over a single first lap and over a distance. From what we have seen today, the situation seems very different to what we experienced in Melbourne, especially when it comes to the consistency of performance from the softer compound. From this point of view, it’s been a good day, but we have to work very carefully on every detail when it comes to the reliability of the car.”
First Session
F. Massa: 2nd 1.35.832 38 laps chassis 275
K. Raikkonen: 18 1st 1.35.707 40 laps chassis 276
Second Session
F. Massa: 2nd 1.35.832 38 laps chassis 275
K. Raikkonen: 1st 1.35.707 40 laps chassis 276
