Ferrari drivers Sebastian Vettel and Charles Leclerc struggled in wet conditions during qualifying session as team endured an exceptionally difficult Saturday at Istanbul Park for tomorrow’s eighth Turkish Grand Prix. For the third time this season, both Ferrari drivers failed to make it Q3, Belgium and Italy are other two races.
As proven in Austria, SF1000 struggled to get the tyres up to the right operating temperature. Four-time World Champion Sebastian Vettel comes home in P12 ahead of his young team mate Charles Leclerc in P14, but both Ferrari drivers set to start the race from P11 & P12 respectively after both McLaren drivers penalized by stewards.
Sebastian Vettel (P12)
“We were struggling just to generate heat in the tyres, and in a situation like this I think couple of degrees makes all the difference. Unfortunately we were not able to maximize our potential and I felt the Extreme Wet was our weakest compound. I’m quite sure the car was better than P12, but not in these conditions.
Tomorrow it will be interesting even starting from the midfield, because the situation with this track surface is something we haven’t seen before, apart from maybe in Austin in 2012, when the asphalt was new. Yesterday, in the dry it was very tricky but was also fun. Of course the race won’t be easy but I think there’s definitely room to improve from our starting position.”
Charles Leclerc (P14)
“The conditions were very difficult for us out there today and unfortunately, our performance was worse than expected, after a reasonably good weekend so far. This morning it was raining quite hard but I could feel the grip and I was confident with the car, but this afternoon it was a completely different picture.
We just could not make the tyres work in quali, we were struggling in the rain and being so far off the pace is really not good. I’m hoping for a dry race tomorrow.”
Laurent Mekies, Sporting Director:
” This was clearly a very disappointing qualifying. We never managed to get the tyres into the right operating window, apart from our last run in Q1. We had already seen from the very first round this year in Austria that we struggle in the wet, but this morning on the intermediates, we were competitive and hoped that would also be the case in qualifying. However, especially on the extreme wets, the drivers were just unable to push.
Throughout the sessions we saw big swings in performance, which shows just how difficult it was for everyone to get the tyres working properly. It’s a shame, because up until this session, it seemed our package could have been competitive in the midfield, but it will be hard to move up from here. From what we saw yesterday, that will be a big disadvantage. But we will do our best, as always, to bring home as many points as possible. It’s going to be a long and uncertain race, partly down to the weather forecast and we will try and make the most of any opportunity.”
