Ferrari had a great car this weekend at Suzuka, but again the drawbacks burdened the team, which ended up ceding even more ground to Red Bull in the constructors ‘ championship.
Kimi Räikkönen qualified in an excellent third position, but a fault in the gearbox dropped him back to eighth square on the grid, after being penalized for replacing it without having completed the cycle of six consecutive races.
Due to this, Kimi was hampered by traffic during a large part of the race, preventing it from developing its potential. “I Had a good start, but had no where to go, I was caught behind other riders, it was really complicated to follow. Once they were spent, the car behaved well. It is a great disappointment, because I think we had a good car. If we had more clean air, we would have had more speed, was not ideal”.
For Kimi, the key was in the penalty, which will put in a committed position from the outset. “Until the penalty it was all going well, we were at a disadvantage with that problem, but sometimes things are so”, admitted resigned to the Finnish before the press moved to Suzuka.
The bent, the cross of Vettel
For Sebastian Vettel was not a good Grand Prize, as it also carried with it a penalty of three places on the grid for his incident with Nico Rosberg in Malaysia. In addition, German is found with the folded multiple times and in areas which are unfavourable to the advancement, something that will lastró in excess. “it Always seems that we reached the bent in the curves, where it is difficult to pass them, so we lose time. We should have gone out ahead of Lewis (Hamilton), so that the folded made us lose position, but seeing the distance at the end, it really doesn’t matter. Our goal was to the second position, not the third”.
Vettel is not in accordance with the behavior of the folded this year, but acknowledges that he also managed the situation so well as did Lewis Hamilton, something which proved decisive for his aspirations of defeating the british. “Lewis managed the traffic on the straights, I always seemed to lose a little bit, because when I picked it up, they were in the curves”.
Vettel defended the strategy of Ferrari, a Major Award, was criticized by several sectors of the press. For Sebastian, the decision to maintain the initial plan was correct. “I Had a very good start and I progressed in the first two laps to pass Ricciardo and Perez; after that, I went faster than Verstappen. I think that today we had the second quickest car, so it was only a matter of time, but then Max came over as soon as he could to keep the position and it worked well for him. at The end we try to go with the soft compound, which at the beginning we thought would work well, but then we had a lot of degradation. It is always easy to criticize and I am sure that there are many experts who know more, but in the wall and in the car we wanted to go forward with the strategy to extend the second ‘stint’, said finally the German.
With four Great Prizes to end the season, Red Bull leads on 50 points, although they are still in game 172.
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