Kimi Räikkönen affected by problems in Barcelona
If Sebastian Vettel managed to hold his position in 3rd place, Kimi Räikkönen has encountered numerous problems since the beginning of the weekend. This continued in the qualifying sessions, with a tire blanket fire causing him to lose a set of tires. Starting seventh, his race promises to be eventful.
The Finn was already struggling during Friday’s practice sessions as the new package offered by the Scuderia did not seem to suit him. The decision was therefore made to revert to the previous technical solution, but this did not improve his performance: « So far the weekend has been more difficult than I would have liked. Today, I struggled again. My car was sliding a lot. After a tough Friday, I decided with the team to go back to the old package because I wanted to ensure everything went well. We knew it was a risk and that it could be difficult, but I didn’t think the result would be this bad. »
What is even less reassuring is that his car does not seem stable over time as the 2007 world champion felt less comfortable in Q3 than in Q2: « In Q2, I felt pretty good but in Q3, it was complicated again. I had no grip and had a bad lap. It’s one of those weekends where more and more things go wrong. Today, we also lost a set of medium tires due to a fire in a heating blanket. »
On a circuit where overtaking is difficult, the race does not look easy for Kimi Räikkönen. Nevertheless, his car seems to be consistently more powerful than the rest of the field, which may raise hopes for a comeback.
On the other side of the garage, things went better for Sebastian Vettel, even though he admitted he couldn’t do anything against the two Mercedes: « It’s not great to finish behind Nico and Lewis, but I think it was the best we could do today. So I’m satisfied. I think the weekend has been a bit tougher than the previous ones to find the balance and the feeling in the car: we’ll see how it goes tomorrow. »
The German acknowledges that he may be less able to threaten his direct competitors as the gap now seems to be bigger: « We have improved the car, but the track conditions are a bit difficult: the wind was very strong and unbalanced the car. The tires are also a bit too hard and they are not working too well. It seems that Mercedes is having a bit less trouble, and the gap seems bigger than usual. »
“Now, since Barcelona is often a benchmark for the intrinsic performance of a car, this doesn’t bode well for the rest of the championship, starting with tomorrow’s race…”
