Saturday: Massa shifts into high gear at Ferrari

Fernando Alonso – 11th and 11th [10th on the grid]:

« This qualifying session was difficult, like the rest of the weekend, even if in some races starting 11th with new tires can help… so I hope that will be the case here as well. It is undoubtedly better to make it to Q3, but unfortunately, I didn’t manage to get a clear lap and missed out on Q3 by a few tenths. This is one of the circuits where we suffer a bit more than usual, but generally, race performance is better, and so even this time, our approach to the race is positive. We absolutely need to have a good start, stay focused, and execute the perfect race if we want to earn important points in the goal to finish second in the constructors’ championship.

We have seen that in the heat, the soft tires perform better than the medium tires, so logically, we will start with soft tires when it is daytime and switch to harder tires when night falls. But we’ll probably have to improvise.

Felipe Massa – 14th and 8th [7th on the grid]:

« I am satisfied with these qualifications as things went in the right direction, more than I imagined. All weekend we weren’t very competitive, and after this morning’s practice, I was disappointed and didn’t think I would make it to Q3, but during Q2 I was able to put in a very good lap to get the most out of the car and managed to gain a few positions on the starting grid. Today, I did everything I could and I don’t think I could have done better even if I hadn’t slid in the last corner. This track doesn’t suit our car. You need a lot of traction here and the high temperatures don’t help us. The race will be long tomorrow so I hope we can score big points but it won’t be easy. »