Saturday: Alonso and Räikkönen are far away for Ferrari trapped by the rain
Fernando Alonso and Kimi Räikkönen failed to get through Q1 at Silverstone during qualifying, mainly because of the rain. Even though both drivers benefit from penalties to gain a few places, they expect a challenging race, though they will be aiming for points.
Fernando Alonso (No. 14) – No time and 19th [16th on the grid]
The Spaniard knew that with the expected weather conditions, it could be difficult, and that was the case for him and the Ferrari team: « When it rains during qualifying, it’s always a lottery, and things can go well or poorly. It’s even easier to make mistakes. In complicated moments like those, you need to have the right tires at the right time, but luck clearly plays a role. I think if I had put on the mediums 30 seconds earlier or later, with a dry track, things would have been very different. »
Alonso still hopes to be able to move up in the race tomorrow, even though it’s never easy starting from the back: « In tomorrow’s race, we will do our best to climb up. Yesterday, in the dry, we had a good pace, and even in the rain, as we saw with my first lap in Q1, it looks good. Mixed conditions might help us, but here it’s impossible to know what the weather will bring tomorrow. One thing is for sure, starting from so far back, we will see a lot of action. »
Kimi Räikkönen (No.7) – 10th and 20th [18th on the grid]
Like Alonso, the Finn fell victim to the timing of the weather and his team, failing to set a sufficient time to get out of Q1: « We knew the changing weather would make this qualifying very unpredictable, but I didn’t expect this kind of result. On my first stint, I did four laps on intermediates because the track was still wet, but then when it stopped raining, we decided to switch to slicks. On the first part of the track, the conditions were acceptable, but in the second sector, it rained again and that prevented us from setting a time sufficient to move on to Q2. »
