Ferrari hopes of mounting challenge to their rivals for Third place in constructors championship dealt with big blow here in Bahrain GP. The team’s both drivers failed to qualify for final qualifying session (Q3) , as they finish the Saturday in P11 & P12.
Both Sebastian Vettel and Charles Leclerc struggled for single lap pace, Ferrari’s engine not only impacted works team, but their customers too. Vettel comes home in P11 with a lap time of 1.29:149, while his teammate qualifies in P12 with a lap time of 1.29.165.
Since Most of the drivers who qualified ahead of Ferrari pair set to start the race on set of mediums, Ferrari drivers doesn’t hold much of advantage there, but four-time World Champion Sebastian Vettel thinks, there is still good chance to score much needed points, he said “It might be a good place to start the race from… Obviously all cars went through on medium so not a real advantage on the tyre choice. We need to be sharp tomorrow, a lot will be decided with the tyres & how you manage them”.
Sebastian Vettel (P11 on the Grid)
“Being able to do just a single lap is never ideal and that was clearly the case in Q2 today. We missed the cut to the next stage by a little over a tenth, but on my only quick lap, I first had George Russell ahead of me, which stopped me getting a tow from Charles, and then I didn’t manage to have a perfect second sector. That just adds to the disappointment because even if we expected to be in the midfield here, we could just as easily have been in the top ten rather than on the sixth row.
All the same, I am confident that the team can still bring home a good amount of points tomorrow. Because of the track characteristics, the race will be mainly about tyre management and I think that we can do something good on that score. We will have to be as sly as a fox, be patient and make no mistakes.”
Charles Leclerc (P12 on the Grid)
“After FP3 I didn’t think we could have ended up higher than P12, but looking back at how quali went, I feel I could have done a better job here and there, so I cannot hide the fact that I’m disappointed not to make it to the top ten.
Seb and I are the first on the grid to have the freedom of going for a different strategy but I don’t think this is going to be much of an advantage, to be honest, since starting on the Medium seems like the best option and the top ten will be starting on the Medium too. It’s going to be a tricky race where tyres will overheat quickly so managing them will be key.”
Laurent Mekies, Sporting Director:
“As expected, given how free practice went yesterday, this was a tough qualifying for us. As has been the case all season, the gaps between us and our closest competitors are pretty small but we were missing a few tenths to make it to Q3. The red flag early in Q2 certainly did us no favours, as Charles was on a really strong lap at the time. In terms of tyre useage today, we were thinking of the race and we hope that choice will work out tomorrow.
We can expect a difficult race given our grid positions but there are around a dozen cars that all have quite similar pace. In a race in which we can expect more pit stops than usual the various strategies could open up opportunities and tyre behaviour will clearly be one of the key factors. The slightest detail could make the difference and, as usual, we will try our utmost to bring home as many points as possible.”
