Azerbaijan Grand Prix – “Tomorrow it can be closer”

Scuderia Ferrari drivers confident about the race
Baku, June 24th – Scuderia Ferrari drivers managed to lock out the second row of the grid for tomorrow’s Azerbaijan Grand Prix after an eventful P3 session, in which our mechanics did another splendid job of rebuilding Seb’s car after a precautionary engine change, following a hydraulic issue.
Kimi was third fastest in qualifying and commented: “The whole weekend has been about making the tires work well and today we struggled a bit more than yesterday. If you can get them working 100% on one lap you can easily go a lot faster, but it was not the case today. When we were able to switch the tires on, the car felt nice, but this feeling kept changing from lap to lap and from set to set. I did not feel comfortable going into the first corner and could not push so hard. It was easy to slide or make a small mistake. It was always on the edge of working and not working, but on the last lap it felt a bit better. Third place is obviously not a disaster, I take it happily. I think we did the best we could achieve today. In the race, with more laps, the tires should start working better. I’m positive that we are going to be a lot closer to our competitors”.
Sebastian didn’t use his car troubles to make any excuses: “The result is ok, but obviously I am not entirely happy and this qualifying didn’t help. I don’t have excuses, I could have done better. I think I had the rhythm at the end but just didn’t get everything right. We were not quick enough, but tomorrow I think we still have a good chance. The car has been fast during the races and that was the case yesterday too, on the long-runs. So, let’s see what happens. The start of my qualifying session was a bit slow, then by Q2 I think I had the car under control. But my Q3 was not ideal. I had to stop at the end of the pit-lane when the red flag came out and my tires got cold. Tomorrow, anyway, it could be a different story.”