Saturday: Abu Dhabi does not succeed for Ferrari

The Abu Dhabi Grand Prix does everything on a grand scale, much like its Ferrari Dome or the hotel overlooking the Yas Marina Circuit. Yet, the Scuderia Ferrari seemed unconcerned by the event of the final Grand Prix of a 2009 season characterized as a failure. During the last practice session, Kimi Räikkönen was able to secure 10th position. Italian Fisichella couldn’t do as well and finished 19th.

Like Luca Badoer, Fisichella imitated him during the qualifying tests by qualifying in the last position. Under the eyes of Felipe Massa, Michael Schumacher, and Luca Di Montezemolo, who came especially for the event, Räikkönen failed to reach Q3 and placed 11th. Mediocre results that extinguish the last glimmers of hope of securing 3rd place in the Constructors’ Championship, the last goal of the season.

Kimi Räikkönen – 10th and 11th:

Today, we got the most out of our car, but we didn’t have the necessary performance to enter Q3. Already yesterday, we realized that the weekend would be difficult, and ultimately, this result is not a surprise. Tomorrow we will try to do our best, but it will not be an easy race even if we absolutely have to be more competitive in the race than in qualifying. What I can say is that 11th place is better than 10th because I will start the race on the clean side of the track and I can choose the most ideal fuel load. It will be complicated to finish 3rd in the constructor’s standings; McLaren remains a very strong contender. We still have to try to score some points and hope to have a bit of luck.

Giancarlo Fisichella – 19th and 20th:

« We knew it would be difficult, but I don’t think we could have expected much more. In the first two sectors, the car is quite competitive, but the car has a lot of understeer. Tomorrow will be a tough day, but I know I can maintain a consistent pace: we will truly do our best to get a result. I’m still disappointed not to have been able to do better for Ferrari because it would be fair to reward the team with some points. »

Chris Dyer – Chief Engineer:

Obviously, we are disappointed with this result for our two drivers, Giancarlo and Kimi. The tire behavior was rather unusual, and the hard tires turned out to be the fastest. With Kimi, we used both types of tires in Q1 to try to understand the situation, while with Giancarlo, we focused on the soft tires. In the second part of qualifying, Kimi did his best but missed just a little to make it to Q3. We clearly did not have enough speed to go into Q3. Tire performance can still evolve, and I think Kimi has the ability to achieve a good result.