Sunday: Improvement for Ferrari F1, Räikkönen just shy of the podium

Fernando Alonso (No. 14) – 7th

After a complicated start, the Spanish driver never managed to get involved in the fight for the podium. He states: « Today, my race started off on the wrong foot since the car wouldn’t start and we had to use another battery. It’s a shame because we had a very good pace all weekend, and, starting fourth, we could have finished on the podium. With a penalty to serve and on a circuit where top speed is our weak point, we knew we didn’t have many chances, but we still tried our best. »

Moreover, the end of the race was rather eventful as he explains: « Unfortunately, towards the end we saw some questionable maneuvers and after I damaged my front wing in contact with Vettel, the most important thing was to reach the checkered flag. I know the stewards reacted to what happened, but I don’t think it’s that important when you’re fighting for sixth and seventh place. »

Kimi Räikkönen (No. 7) – 4th

The Finn achieved his best result of the season by employing an offensive strategy. He says: « We had decided to approach this race more aggressively, making an early stop to get ahead of the cars that still had to pit, and that allowed me to stay with the leaders for a large part of the race. When Bottas in the Williams started to get closer to me, I knew it wasn’t fast enough to defend myself on the straight, and with only a few laps remaining, he managed to overtake me. »

The balance is therefore positive for the former world champion: « In general, I am quite happy with how this weekend ended. We knew it wouldn’t be easy on this circuit, we did our best and for the first time, we managed to have a clean race without any problems. The car has improved and today the pace was good. The fourth place shows that we are going in the right direction, but that doesn’t mean we can rest on our laurels. Today, we scored a good number of points, but we are here to win and we will continue to work to reach the top. »