Ferrari wanted to win in Sochi but failed to finish on the podium
Despite two first-place finishes in qualifying, the Ferrari team failed to convert this front row into a victory. Sebastian Vettel and Kimi Räikkönen nevertheless finished on the podium, albeit behind Valtteri Bottas' Mercedes.
All the members of the Ferrari team were ecstatic on Saturday evening after the qualifying session saw their two drivers, Sebastian Vettel and Kimi Räikkönen, lock out the front row of the starting grid for the Russian Grand Prix.
But the truth of Sunday is sometimes quite different from that of the day before, and after a bad start, Sebastian Vettel had already lost the race after the second corner: « I think my start was okay. Maybe I could have been a bit more aggressive. There was a delay in the lights going out, so I didn’t quite understand how the grid was. Still, I made a good start, but we had a strong headwind all day and Bottas was able to get a significant slipstream, so there was nothing I could do. »
Vettel does not fail to acknowledge Bottas’s first victory: « Valtteri had a great race. He drove better than all of us and deserves his victory. Towards the end, I was flat out, I felt like I could get into the DRS zone and put pressure on him and, who knows, lead him to make a mistake, but it didn’t happen. »
An opportunity that did not arise, notably due to a misunderstanding with Felipe Massa’s Williams. Vettel complained over the radio about the behavior of the Brazilian, whom he was lapping: « What happened with Massa is just a misunderstanding. I wasn’t really sure where he was going to let me pass. But I didn’t lose the race at that moment,” the four-time world champion concedes.
Despite everything, his second place combined with Hamilton’s absence from the podium allows him to increase his lead over the Briton in the drivers’ championship. Thirteen points now separate the two men.
The other strong man of this weekend is also Finnish and he races for Ferrari. Kimi Räikkönen, who missed pole position by a few hundredths on Saturday, climbed onto the podium on Sunday with a displayed satisfaction after some difficult races: « It’s a much more positive weekend than the first three races. I was happier with the car, so I was able to push it more easily and achieve good lap times. The race was decided at the start, and mine was rather bad. I thought I lost a lot, but I managed to regain my position and hold onto it. My car behaved well throughout the race, but after that, not much happened. »
Boredom seemed to be looming for the Ferrari driver who hadn’t even realized that his compatriot was leading the race.
RAI: “How did we end up behind Bottas?”
TEAM: “He was leading the race, Kimi”😂#RussianGP #F1 pic.twitter.com/sE3zKPfgus
— Formula 1 (@F1) 30 avril 2017
