Just one week after the Bahrain lock-out, Scuderia Ferrari once again qualified both cars on the front row as Sebastian Vettel beat Kimi Raikkonen by a mere 0.087 seconds in the qualifying session for the 2018 Chinese Grand Prix. This result marks pole number 215 for the team, the 7th for Sebastian in Ferrari colours. In very different weather conditions from the ones encountered at Sakhir last weekend, the SF71Hs delivered a strong performance with both the Ultrasoft and the Soft compound, the latter being the one with which both drivers start on tomorrow.
“We have been pretty happy with the way things have been so far this weekend. Qualifying today was pretty close; we had two good laps, but unfortunately I lost some speed in the last sector and couldn’t improve. Obviously I wanted more, but tomorrow is another day. We ‘ll start the race with the Soft tires and our rivals start with the same compound: that will be slightly different compared to the other cars and I think it will be better like this. We did what we think is the best for us and is supposed to give us the best result in the end. Our aim is to win, first of all we need to do a good job tomorrow and take the most out of it. I think we have been ok in all the races so far; we have been extracting more out of the car and learning more about it. We have been pretty consistent and happy with things, obviously we need to improve here and there but that’s a normal and never ending process.” – Kimi Raikkonen said, as reported by the Italian media at the end of the qualifying session in Shanghai.
Asked by Autosport what happened in the final sector, Kimi Raikkonen added: “Nothing really happened. I lost some time, but I don’t know. It wasn’t like I did some big mistake. It was close [to Vettel], close enough to make a difference. Not ideal. Tomorrow’s the day, we’ll see what happens.” – the Finnish driver explained.
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