Räikkönen and Vettel on the third row: disillusionment and incomprehension for Ferrari in Catalonia

By finishing more than a second behind poleman Lewis Hamilton, neither Kimi Räikkönen nor Sebastian Vettel could fulfill the hopes of a good Friday, dropping to fifth and sixth position: “I don’t know what happened this afternoon,” Vettel admitted on the spot after this modest Catalan performance. While he had been keeping up rather well with the Mercedes until then, a gap literally opened up at the moment of Q3. “The team is really disappointed because we did not achieve the performance we hoped for.”

After the turbulent double episode with Daniil Kyvat, after the engine failure during the formation lap in Bahrain, the quadruple World Champion encounters a new difficulty in the course of his season: “We can no longer change the standings, now, we must look and understand what happened. We know the car is very competitive, we just need to ensure we’re heading in the right direction. Despite everything, I think we will be faster in the race tomorrow.”

The team principal Maurizio Arrivabene, already under pressure from his owners, was equally perplexed by this loss of pace. Cryptically, he added: « Something went wrong… for both our drivers at the same time. We were much faster this morning… we need to check our data. »

For his part, Kimi Räikkönen admitted a hypothesis: a sluggish final sector. This winding portion of the circuit is clearly not to the liking of the SF 16-H: “The final sector is where we lost the most time,” he told journalists’ microphones.

Despite his internal victory in Qualifying against Vettel for the second time this season, “Iceman” could hardly be pleased with his fifth position: « We are far from where we wanted to be, but we must continue our efforts. » But could this sudden performance deficit be due to poor setup changes? The driver with number 7 immediately dismissed this rumor with a wave of his hand: « Yes, we changed the car’s setup, but we were still faster here this morning. »

The disarray of the Italian team is amplified by the statistics: this is only the fourth time in two seasons that Räikkönen or Vettel have not reached the Top 4. In the end, this Saturday afternoon is another hard blow in the season for the Prancing Horse brand. The team must remain united more than ever in the face of the criticisms that will undoubtedly emerge in the coming hours. Kimi Räikkönen and Sebastian Vettel will certainly have their work cut out for them tomorrow in the race to get rid of the two Red Bulls of Ricciardo and Verstappen.