Ferrari expects unpredictable race after tight qualifying
Fernando Alonso and Kimi Raikkonen will start tomorrow’s 71 lap Brazilian Grand Prix from the fourth and fifth rows of the grid, in eighth and tenth places respectively. Like the previous three sessions, this fourth one took place in the dry, as the threat of rain didn’t materialize.
Q1 went off smoothly for Kimi and Fernando, who went through to the next stage in seventh and tenth places, although they immediately had to make use of the Soft tyres. The fight was tighter in Q2, with the Scuderia drivers having to use their remaining sets of the softer of the two compounds. This time, they got to Q3, again in seventh and tenth places. In Q3, they were only able to do one run each, with Fernando posting a 1.10.977 and Kimi a 1.11.099.
Fernando Alonso, chassis 307, 8th: “Today’s result more or less reflects the way the whole weekend has gone, even if here, a tenth of a second can be the difference between fifth and tenth places. Both compounds worked very well, but I’m sure graining and degradation will give us a hard time tomorrow. It will be a long race and, apart from reliability, the key factor will be tyre management. As usual we will give it our all to finish in front of our competitors and score points in the Constructors’ championship.”
Kimi Raikkonen, chassis 308, 10th: “This weekend, I’ve had a better feeling in the car and, in general, I’ve had no major problems while I also felt more comfortable with the front end. We lacked speed today and even though this was our quickest lap of the weekend, it was not enough to finish higher up the grid. Obviously, I’m a bit disappointed to be tenth and, without having done a race simulation yesterday, we are a bit in the dark like most teams. However, what counts is that finally I feel much more comfortable at the wheel, which means we are making progress.”
Pat Fry: “Qualifying was very tight for us, as it was for Red Bull and McLaren, while yet again in Interlagos, Williams and Mercedes proved to have the best package. That was clear from Q2, when the gaps were very close from fifth to tenth places, with the six drivers split by just one tenth. Kimi and Fernando made no mistakes and, even with these grid positions, we will try and exploit any opportunity tomorrow. The weather forecast is still uncertain and usually it’s difficult to predict here. It will be interesting to see how the tyres perform, given the little long run data we got yesterday because of the numerous red flags. Now we will work on preparing for any conditions, aware that apart from performance, reliability will also play a key role.”
