Ferrari - Malaysian GP - Qualifying

After finishing first and second yesterday afternoon in practice in Malaysia, things were looking good for the Ferrari team this weekend. Qualifying for the second round of the championship saw it all go wrong for the Italian team however with Felipe Massa lining up 16th and Kimi Raikkonen seventh.

Massa was one of the first on track in the first round of qualifying opting to run the softer option Bridgestone tyre. Having completed two flying lap the Brazilian pitted confident that his time would be fast enough to make it into the second round of qualifying.

It was the wrong decision as the final second of the 20 minute session saw Massa bumped down the order and eliminated from further qualifying.

Team-mate Raikkonen made it to the final round of qualifying and set the ninth fastest time. With two rivals taking grid position penalties, the Finn starts the race from seventh.

Felipe Massa
“I am very disappointed. If I had ended up 16th because of a lack of performance, then I could have accepted the result, but like this it hurts even more. The track improved so much with each passing lap and my first run was not perfect and nor was it enough. We did not react in time and lost the chance to have another go. No one person is to blame: we are a team and we lose or win all together."

"We have to change our approach and tackle qualifying in a different way to the past.
There is no room for error and we have to give it our all, right from the first session. Nevertheless, I am very motivated. It won’t be the first time I will have to tackle a race starting way down the order and I know I can count on having a strong pace. We will have to try and exploit every opportunity to make up places.”

Kimi Raikkonen
“Honestly, the main problem is that, at the moment, we are not quick enough to fight for the top places. The car is not lacking in any particular area, but we do not have enough grip to be as quick as those who finished ahead of us today. Tomorrow’s race will be very tough. We will try to make the most of the start."

"In Australia, it was very good but there was nowhere to go, whereas here, the straight is long and the track is wide. Furthermore, as we saw yesterday, our pace is competitive. We have to improve our performance but obviously, it is important to have the regulations clarified as quickly as possible, to understand in which direction to go. Both types of tyres work well over a distance and we will try and exploit that.”

Stefano Domenicali, Team Principal
“This result is definitely not up to our expectations, even if we knew it would be a difficult qualifying. However the aspect that really leaves a bitter taste in the mouth is the way in which we tackled the first part of the session. We made a false assumption that cost us dear with Felipe, who was immediately out, failing to make the first cut."

"Tomorrow, it will be a long and difficult race, with a question mark over the weather which can change really quickly. We will have to make the most of our race pace and the start: in Australia, we saw that anything can happen and we will have to be ready to pounce on every opportunity, with the obvious proviso that we cannot make any more mistakes.”

Luca Baldisserri
“We opted to do just one run on the new soft tyres in Q1 in order to save a set for the following sessions and to do that run right at the start of qualifying as we were worried about the threat of rain. Then we did not react quickly enough in recognizing that the track was improving much more than we had expected and we watched our two drivers slide further and further down the order, to such an extent that Felipe didn’t make it to Q2."

"Now we have to concentrate on the race. We know our potential over a distance is better than that shown over the first lap and tomorrow we will have to make the most of that.”