quoteAbu Dhabi Grand Prix - “A nice and clean weekend”
Kimi sums up a year of progress with third place
Kimi Raikkonen: “It has been a nice and clean weekend, the car was handling well and we had no issues. In the race I was pretty happy with the speed and everything ran smoothly . We only had a small delay in the pit stops, which dropped us off a bit and we did not manage to really challenge the Mercedes. I think today we could have been closer, but third place here is an OK result, even if we always want to win and challenge for that. If we think where we were last year, there has been a really good effort from all the guys in the team. We have been pretty satisfied with the car all year long and the results have got better. Next year there is a new challenge and a new car: I think we have to keep doing the same things we did this year, improving consistently and working as one team, following the progress we did this year. Nobody knows what will happen next year and it’s too early to start guessing. We can only do our best and then we’ll see what the others do. Only time will tell.”
Abu Dhabi Grand Prix - “A miracle year”
Seb looks back to his first season in red
Sebastian Vettel: “Obviously I would have loved to get the podium again, but I think today’s result was the best possible one for us as a team. I lost quite a lot of time at the beginning and then kept playing catch up until the end. The pace was good, especially in the first and final stint, the car was also good and I managed to do some overtaking. I was very happy, it was good fun. We knew from before that Kimi and I would have crossed path with each other, as we were on very different tire strategies. It was clear that when Kimi would be close enough I would give him way to haunt the Mercedes: unfortunately that was not enough to achieve that, but I did not want to be in his way. I think we can be very happy for this season. Of course the last step to catch the Mercedes will also be the hardest one, but if you think about where we were only one year ago, this has been a miracle season. I can’t think of any other team which improved so much over a year. Big smiles are going around in our garage and for next year we want to increase the amount of smiles. I’ m very happy to have joined the team in this moment and to have had an opening year with Ferrari like I had. Hopefully we’ll have many more good ones coming”.
Abu Dhabi Grand Prix - “Together we climbed a mountain”
Maurizio: big thanks to all the team
Maurizio Arrivabene: “Kimi drove a very good race today, as I expected him to do, and Seb charged from fifteenth on the grid to fourth place across the finish line. This is a result which wraps up a bit the whole season. Already at the first test last winter, we had had some positive feedback: but then we also knew that we had a mountain to climb, and the guys in the team did it step by step, both at the circuits and at the factory. It’s a whole team effort we were able to put on, with everybody working hard to improve. A big thanks to all of them, they’ve been fantastic and deserve the highest grades! Special thanks to our President, who never stopped pushing and supporting us from behind the curtains. Now we know that we face an even bigger challenge for next year, not only catching up on our rivals but also trying to stay ahead of them.”
quote McLaren ended its troubled Formula 1 season with the fastest time in Pirelli's Abu Dhabi tyre test, set by GP2 champion Stoffel Vandoorne.
The Belgian completed 99 laps in the last outing for the McLaren-Honda MP4-30, setting a best time of 1m44.103s, 0.353 seconds ahead of Ferrari's Kimi Raikkonen.
The Finn was one of nine 2015 race drivers in action during the 12-hour test, as Pirelli looks to bring a tyre performance 'cliff' back to F1 next year.
Pirelli trialled "several different potential variations" of the new ultra-soft compound along with new front and rear constructions of other compounds.
Teams were banned from trying new parts.
"We had one shot when it came to testing tyres for next season, and we can be satisfied by what we've achieved in this test, even if we have to fully analyse the data," Pirelli's Paul Hembery said.
"We've tested different versions of the new ultra-soft compound for 2016, which was one of the targets for this session.
"The ultra-soft's target for 2016 is to introduce a compound softer than the super-soft and mainly designed as aggressive choice for street circuits: with better performance than the latest version of the super-soft tyre and faster degradation, in order to allow the teams to take a more aggressive approach to race strategy.
"Whether this will produce more pit stops, or any difference in strategies, it's too early to say for now.
"But it seems we are heading in the right direction: the ultra-soft is expected to offer more possibilities for certain races."
Marcus Ericsson set the third-fastest time for Sauber, ahead of 2016 Lotus driver Jolyon Palmer and Raikkonen's Ferrari team-mate Sebastian Vettel.
Both Red Bull and Toro Rosso race drivers also ran, while new Force India development driver Alfonso Celis turned his first laps in a Formula 1 car and Manor gave GP2 driver Jordan King his first F1 mileage.
Pirelli F1 test day times:
1. Stoffel Vandoorne McLaren 1m44.103s 99 2. Kimi Raikkonen Ferrari 1m44.456s 56 3. Marcus Ericsson Sauber 1m44.480s 50 4. Jolyon Palmer Lotus 1m44.568s 90 5. Sebastian Vettel Ferrari 1m44.940s 56 6. Pascal Wehrlein Mercedes 1m45.605s 107 7. Daniel Ricciardo Red Bull 1m45.805s 57 8. Max Verstappen Toro Rosso 1m45.849s 54 9. Nico Hulkenberg Force India 1m45.852s 71 10. Valtteri Bottas Williams 1m45.940s 103 11. Daniil Kvyat Red Bull 1m46.309s 48 12. Carlos Sainz Jr Toro Rosso 1m46.995s 56 13. Adderly Fong Sauber 1m48.439s 57 14. Alfonso Celis Jr Force India 1m48.545s 65 15. Rio Haryanto Manor 1m49.593s 56 16. Jordan King Manor 1m49.661s 59
I really hope those tyres help Kimi heat his tyres faster for quali. I haven't seen Kimi in pole position live. Since I missed the first half of his career.
Print view
Sun Nov 29, 2015 1:47 am
reply
Momo
