Ferrari only the third force in Austin
Ferrari could only be the third force over the course of the American GP weekend after the Italian team showed promising pace on a similar track in Japan two weeks ago. Ferrari’s Sebastian Vettel grabbed the fourth place in the race while his team-mate Kimi Räikkönen was forced to park his car after his team failed to secure a wheel during the Finn’s final pit stop.
Ferrari arrived with high hopes to America. It built its confidence on the pace showed on the high-speed circuit of Suzuka. The team, however, endured a difficult Friday when both cars suffered from balance woes.
The team could not solve all its setup issues for the qualifying which resulted in only fifth and sixth place for its drivers. However, the race pace looked much more promising, bad luck struck both drivers.
Kimi Räikkönen who was on a three-stop strategy was forced to give up the race as a wheel was not attached correctly after his last pit stop.
“Obviously the end result of this race is far from ideal. It’s a pity because the performance of the car today was good. When we changed for Soft tires, for whatever reason I seemed to struggle. The balance was ok but I never really had the grip I was expecting. Once we went back to Supersofts the car was good again."
“When I left the pits after the third pit stop I slowed down a bit and asked if everything was ok because I saw some sparks coming out. At the end of the pitlane the team told me to stop. Now we have to understand what happened, the rear wheel nut had not fitted properly,” added Räikkönen.
Ferrari’s German driver Sebastian Vettel was happy to see his car behaving better in race conditions than in the qualifying.
“Overall today was a better day than yesterday, it was a good race. The start was not so good and into turn 1 I was quite lucky, given that somebody was hitting me, I think it was Nico Hülkenberg. Luckily nothing was broken so I could carry on.”
The quadruple world champion regretted the missed the opportunity of gaining some valuable points on Ferrari’s fierce rival Red Bull in the Constructors’ Championship.
“Then the pace was good, we were looking after the tires, so we could go longer than other people. The race was a bit different than we expected, we got a present from Max today but unfortunately also Kimi had some problems and had to retire. It could have been a good performance for the team with both cars in the points.”
