Saturday: Ferrari bet on the race

Fernando Alonso – 4th and 8th

The strategy used today was dictated by our average performance in qualifying, given that pole was out of our reach and the two scenarios were either to start 5th or 6th on softs or start 6th or 7th on mediums. We won’t know the value of our choice until tomorrow. Perhaps here it is not so important to start at the front because the softs show a strong degradation and therefore, from lap 8, the first stops will take place and traffic will set in. At that time, we will have to push as if we were in qualifying laps. All weekend, we have been off the pace by 6 tenths, but compared to Silverstone we can say we are back to normal, capable of fighting at the front. Of course, we still need to improve a lot, but in the race, we think we can be competitive, remembering that, regardless of the tires and starting positions, the fastest wins.

Felipe Massa – 5th and 7th

« In terms of performance, it was a good qualifying session, even though we opted for a completely different strategy compared to the teams ahead of us on the grid. The car worked very well and with the soft tires, we were very competitive, even more than at Silverstone, where we struggled with both compounds, even if we could not have finished higher than 4th and 5th. When I saw that I was first at the end of Q1 and Q2, I felt I wanted to fight until the end, but considering the simulation done during free practice, we felt our choice was the right direction to take. It’s hard to think we will gain places at the start with the mediums, but yesterday we saw the softs degrading after only a few laps and that might work in our favor. If the car behaves well and if we manage to have a good race, we can achieve a fantastic result. »