Difficult Saturday for Ferrari under the floodlights of Singapore
A disappointing qualifying session for the Scuderia Ferrari Marlboro at the Singapore Grand Prix, where tomorrow, Kimi Raikkonen will start from thirteenth place and Giancarlo Fisichella from eighteenth.
“Our target today was to get at least one car through to Q3 and the other to Q2, but we did not succeed and we have to accept that our package just wasn’t quick enough in this qualifying session,” said Stefano Domenicali. “Furthermore, if so many of our competitors continue to develop their cars, while we stopped doing so with ours several weeks ago, then the more time goes by, the more we will find ourselves in an ever more difficult situation. However, what really matters is the race result, where reliability is always the key factor, especially in a race that looks like being very tough and where all sorts of things could happen. Clearly, we will be trying to fight our way towards the front, which means it will be difficult to reach our minimum target of finishing in the top eight.”
Giancarlo Fisichella: “Obviously, I am disappointed with this result. I really wanted to do well, but I still haven’t managed to find the right level of confidence in this car: it’s almost as if it is driving me rather than the other way round. Especially on such a difficult track, I don’t have the confidence to go right to the limit. Naturally starting from eighteenth place means I can expect a very difficult race. I will try and make up some places at the start and then make the most of the race pace. Getting into the points would be the maximum, but even that will be a very tough target to reach.”
Kimi Raikkonen: “Unfortunately, today we were just not quick enough to get into Q3 and there was not much we could do about it. It’s logical that, as other cars improve, race after race, we pay a higher price for our decision to stop developing the F60. Tomorrow, we can expect a tough race as it is very difficult to overtake here, so getting into the points will be very difficult. It’s true that anything can happen on a track like this and we will have to do our best to make the most of every opportunity, maybe getting some help through a good start as we have usually managed in the last few races. As for the tyres, I think that tomorrow, there could be a problem with wear on the softer tyre, even if the situation could improve during the race.”
Chris Dyer: “A really difficult qualifying for us, even more so than we expected. We knew it would be tough, but we felt we could have made it through to the final part of the session. But honestly, today we did not have the performance to do that. Kimi did two good laps in Q2, but it was not enough. Tomorrow’s race will be very long, so let’s hope we can make up some places at the start and then try and get into the points.”
K. Raikkonen: 13° 1.47.177 6 laps
G. Fisichella: 18° 1.48.350 11 laps
