Super soft doesn’t suit Ferrari

This is becoming a recurring theme: Ferraris are in good shape on Fridays but end up disappearing at the crucial moment of qualifying. A new illustration of this came this weekend: Sebastian Vettel was leading in FP2 but could do no better than 7th at the end of qualifying.

The German explained this lack of performance by the non-improvement of his times with the super-soft tires, while all the other drivers gained half a second. He thus found it hard to hide his disappointment: « I am very disappointed because the car was fast. We cruised through Q2 with the softs. I was very comfortable but then we were nowhere with the super softs. Yesterday we gained a lot of time with the super softs, but today we gained nothing. Everyone gained time with the super softs, more or less half a second. Everyone except us. »

Once again, he will not start with an advantage, even though he attempted an alternate strategy by using only soft tires during Q2, which will allow him to start with them during the race. He will thus start just behind his teammate, Kimi Räikkönen, who finished 6th in the session.

Nevertheless, the Finn was also dissatisfied with his performance due to a straight-line problem that handicapped him during his last Q3 attempt: « In Q3, we were well-positioned, but during the first run, I had a strange feeling in the last part of the lap, and I felt that I could have gone faster in several places. During the second run, for an unknown reason, I had no top speed on the straight. Something wasn’t working, and we couldn’t even try to go faster. It’s a shame because I think we could have easily done better, but we couldn’t use our speed. »

Ferrari therefore finds itself distanced by its usual rivals, Mercedes and Red Bull, and even outpaced by Nico Hülkenberg’s Sahara Force India.