Kimi Räikkonen is not a man on Friday, but in China, the finn has led the FP2. With a time of 1:36.896, the pilot of Ferrari has been the fastest on a track slippery in that it has not been easy to link time, except with tires superblandos. In spite of this, feelings seem to be positive within the team of Maranello, as Sebastian Vettel has finished in the wake of Kimi. The lack of grip, high tyre degradation and possible rain Saturday invite in any case, the prudence of both pilots.
Kimi Räikkönen was very pragmatic in his first statements to the press: “we’ll Have to see what happens tomorrow. The victory will be difficult because the track is a little slider, except with the superblandos. They are not the ideal conditions for riding, but it is a lot better with these tires. I think that the superblandos is the best option, but it is still too early to say for sure. it looks like that the race conditions will be quite delicates, we’ll have to see what happens”.
In this line, subsequently Räikkönen explained the sensations arising from this lack of grip: “Has been a difficult day in general. I had problems to get grip in the tyres, probably due to the wind. Slid a lot of the car and this was not a pleasant feeling. When I put the superblandos seemed to work better, I had more grip and it helped to have a good lap. We have to try to obtain the maximum performance for the race, whatever the weather conditions tomorrow”.
“Friday is not as important in terms of position,
but in terms of sensations in the car. We have had a day of decent and
the feeling is that the car is well, but we can improve on
everything in balance,” claimed Sebastian Vettel. The German, who finished
second to a tenth of Kimi, he added: “tonight we’re going to have a great
amount of work to do. Always the goal is to go for the pole position, but
it’s Friday and we’re not going to stress out a lot. The
car went well and even after the long run I was able to test something
more“.
Even so, Sebastian Vettel had no problems in pointing out, to the
like its companion, to the tires as the key point of the weekend: “All
we have to improve the consumption of the tyres and their degradation. This track is very abrasive to the gums and glide a lot. A
back to classification perhaps we can go well, but in the race I would like to
give a lot of good laps in a row. That will be our main objective. Kimi and
I have had different programs this afternoon, so it is difficult to be able to
compare our pace or our laps. We must learn from each
another”.
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