The Ferraris were running second and third after Lewis Hamilton’s bad start, but over the course of the race they were shuffled back as the pace of the Mercedes shone through on a one-stop strategy.
Advertisement
“The atmosphere in the team is solid, everybody they are solid: we are looking in the right direction”. Vettel was able to muscle a lap of 1:21.972 out of his Ferrari in front of the Home Town fans and the ruling elite of Ferrari. Here, the gap was bigger. “I was a bit on the limit in the last corner too, a bit late on the throttle. but it looks like they [Mercedes] were in a world of their own today”.
“We took some action, and now since the last two races, things are going a bit better”.
“But we’ve done a great job, finished third and fourth which is the optimum we could get”. Last year was already phenomenal and this year seems even better.
“So there we did a really good job with the auto, whereas here it’s just very hard because at Spa you could find a compromise between running low downforce and medium downforce”.
The issue stretches back over a year now to when Formula One’s ever-outspoken commercial chief Bernie Ecclestone cast doubt on the future of the Italian race and its viability in staying at its longtime home. “Nevertheless I think it’s been a a great day”.
At the 40 minute break, the top 10 were: Hamilton, Raikkonen, Vettel, Perez, Raikkonen, Verstappen, Bottas, Ricciardo, Alonso and Button. It’s a little frustrating but at least there were no major surprises. We were forced to use the supersoft instead to be on the safe side getting into Q3.
“Of course next year is important and we have a huge amount of focus on that – but it is the responsibility of each and every person in the team to do our best to be successful”. We knew Williams would be quick around here but with DRS and being strong on the brakes we can still pull off some moves. We had fresher tyres at the end, so it was expected that we would be quicker and catching up, but it was not enough to put them under pressure.
Qualifying started out with Hamilton quickly establishing his supremacy over the field as he set the standard early in the opening session. Toro Rosso Ferrari – Daniil Kvyat and Carlos Sainz. Ferrari followed suit with its drivers in the next three laps, releasing Hamilton up into second place. If we did the same strategy as them, we were [going to be] 11 seconds slower than we were.
Advertisement
Also failing to progress were both McLaren Hondas.
