Many problems for Sebastian Vettel and Ferrari
Ferrari did not have a restful Friday, with numerous technical issues on Sebastian Vettel's car. Kimi Räikkönen had fewer problems but was unable to challenge the Mercedes.
In Melbourne, Ferrari was almost able to challenge Mercedes’ dominance. But this Friday in Bahrain, the Mercedes team didn’t have to worry as they clearly dominated the competition, including Ferrari. Thus, while Kimi Räikkönen held his position by finishing 3rd in the first session, he couldn’t do better than 5th in the night session.
But the Finn believes that his best time in the second session could have been improved if he hadn’t been hindered on his fast lap with ultra-softs: *We did quite a few laps, and it wasn’t too bad. I had traffic on my lap with the super soft tires but, apart from that, it was okay. I didn’t pay too much attention to what others were doing, we followed our own program. Obviously, lap times are something that stands out, but we’ll see what happens tomorrow.*
The serenity was not the same at all on the other side of the Red garage. Indeed, Sebastian Vettel lost valuable track time due to several technical problems. During the first session, it was a water leak that kept him in the garage. But in the second session, the German driver was forced to stop on the track. Although he thought it was an engine problem, it was actually a simple issue with the fixing of his rear wheel that caused his stop on the track: « We are not 100% sure what happened. I lost power in turn 4. So I decided to stop. Obviously, we didn’t want to take any risk of damaging the car or the engine. It’s really a shame because I would have really liked to do more laps but it is what it is. Obviously, it was crucial to do laps today and gather information but it was even more important to make sure the car was in good condition for the whole weekend and the whole season. »
He was not worried about his 6th and 11th positions of the day as he believes he can do better during the qualifications tomorrow: “As for our rivals, I don’t know what they did today. I think we can improve for tomorrow. Hopefully, we’ll be a little closer. We’ll see.”
With the participation of www.racingbusiness.fr
