Canadian Grand Prix – “This pole means a lot to us”

Seb over the moon after Qualifying, Kimi unsure about what happened

Montreal, June 9 – Every metre counts on this 4.361 Km long circuit where half a tenth of a second can make a lot of difference. Scuderia Ferrari’s Sebastian Vettel got the best out of it today and his effort resulted in pole number 217 for the team, the 4th in the season so far. Conversely, a small mistake on his very last run, cost Kimi Raikkonen dear and he had to settle for fifth place when a much better result had looked on the cards. However,  the substantial performance improvement that the SF71H has shown since the first day of practice means there’s a lot of potential to be explored in tomorrow’s race.
“Pole position is always important”, said Seb “and for Scuderia Ferrari this track and this country means a lot, as this is the place where Gilles Villeneuve came from. That’s why I am very happy to have qualified on pole. It’s a great result for all the team, but I think I could have been even faster. I was quite happy with my first run in Q3 but I knew there was something more in the car for the first part of the lap. So I tried it all but I wasn’t sure until the end if it was enough. We have  definitely improved since yesterday, I was very happy with the car today . Choosing the Ultrasofts for the start of the race was a pretty straightforward decision for us, now we have to do our best on Sunday!”
Teammate Kimi Raikkonen was obviously less happy: “On my last try in Q3, I suddenly had a lot of understeer  entering Turn 2, I  struggled to turn the car round. At that point I had no choice but  to try and get out of it as quickly as possible , but obviously I was off the line and my lap finished there. What happened was a bit odd,  my car had been working well all day. I’m sure there was more to come today, and the end result is not what we were looking for. Tomorrow is a different day though, we’ll see what happens. For sure it will be tricky, with different tires on different cars in the front. It’s difficult to have a clear picture of how it will pan out, but we believe  we made the right choice for the start of the race”.