Ferrari leaves Spa-Francorchamps almost empty-handed
With a 7th place finish for Kimi Räikkönen as the best result, Ferrari collected the smallest total of points at a Grand Prix since the beginning of the season. However, without Sebastian Vettel's tire burst in the penultimate lap, the outcome would have been quite different.
Sebastian Vettel was in third position when his right rear tire burst on the straight of Les Combes: « We deserved to finish on the podium, but that’s racing; however, it’s a whole different thing not to finish on the podium because of what happened. I think it’s hard for a driver to accept, even though it’s not worse than at Silverstone a few years ago. There is no explanation for this event: it’s not a puncture, the tire just exploded. »
On his side, Kimi Räikkönen didn’t look satisfied at the finish either. Starting 16th, the Finn finished in 7th place: « We are obviously not satisfied with our final position, but it’s much better than our place on the grid. My start was quite bad, I had a lot of wheel spin. (…) My car behaved well throughout the race; only towards the end, I had worn out the front tires too much. Today, we kept giving our best to try to improve our position, but coming back from so far wasn’t easy. »
With only six points collected at Spa, Maurizio Arrivabene, the director of Scuderia, would have wished for a better outcome: « Of course, we did not have the best weekend of the season. We chose an aggressive strategy for Sebastian [with only one stop], until the sudden and unfortunate blowout of a tire two laps before the end. »
Ferrari will have to do much better in two weeks, at Monza, for its home race.
