Qualifying - Bahrain GP report: Ferrari

The SF15-Ts of Sebastian Vettel and Kimi Raikkonen will start the Bahrain Grand Prix from second and fourth spots on the grid respectively. At the end of today’s qualifying at the Sakhir circuit, where the temperature was around the 25 degree mark, pole position went to Lewis Hamilton who posted a 1.32.571 in his Mercedes. To claim his front row slot, Vettel did a 1.32.982, beating Nico Rosberg (1.33.129) in the other Mercedes. Raikkonen was fourth fastest with a 1.33.227 and therefore starts from the second row.

Kimi Raikkonen

“It was a positive day even if it’s a bit disappointing to finish fourth, because our aim is to be at the front. My last lap was quite good, I made a small mistake and ran wide a little bit in one corner, but it was nearly nothing, it did not cost me a lot of time. It was very close with everybody. On the track there was more grip than I expected and probably I could have pushed a little bit more, but I was not sure I could. My car was working well today, the position on the grid is not ideal but it’s a good starting point for the race. Tomorrow we’ll try to make a good start, and move on from there with a good first lap. To get ahead of Rosberg would help a lot, and then we’ll see what we can do. We’ll do our maximum”.

Sebastian Vettel

“In the end it is a great success for us to be able to split the Mercedes. Again, we seem to be a bit closer; but then everybody seemed to be a bit closer this weekend. So, hopefully, we can be another step closer tomorrow. In the beginning of qualifying i was not entirely happy, but then it got better and better. The last lap was very important and we were able to get it right. Now I can’t tell whether I will be able to win the race tomorrow. Let’s not forget that this is only the fourth race of the season; we are very happy with where we are, how competitive we are. We’ll go step by step, we’ll try our best possible race tomorrow, and if this means we can put pressure on the Mercedes, then we’ll do it. But the target is still to look after ourselves; if there is a chance to fight one or two of them, for sure we’ll go for it”.