Saturday: Mixed results for Ferrari

Fernando Alonso (#14) – 3rd and 5th

This qualifying session saw a usual result for the Spanish driver, as he himself points out. Until now, the weekend has been very positive with good feelings from the car since the first lap of free practice. But as the double world champion says, that could change by tomorrow: The typhoon we are expecting tomorrow brings a bit of tension, we haven’t done a single lap on a wet track.

Despite everything, Fernando Alonso knows that the race will be difficult in any case: Suzuka is a circuit where, even on a dry track, incidents can happen and it is easy to make mistakes. It remains to be seen if the Spaniard can confirm his good form from the recent Grand Prix events, which saw his Ferrari climb up the hierarchy.

Kimi Räikkönen (No. 7) – 12th and 10th

While his teammate secured the 5th position, Kimi Räikkönen was relegated quite far down the grid, on the 5th row. The performance today is directly in line with that of the weekend so far. I am unable to resolve some issues that we already had on Friday. During the third free practice session, a slight problem hampered the Finn, depriving him of valuable track time in a car from which he can’t seem to extract the best performance.

But the 2007 world champion was able to rely on his team to solve his problem in time to participate in the qualifications. In the first sector, however, I had a small issue with balance, which prevented me from attacking as hard as I wanted. I did my best today, and tomorrow we will try to gain a few places, he concluded.