Kimi Raikkonen admitted he is still having problems at the corner where he has spun at the last two Canadian Grands Prix.
The Ferrari driver qualified over half a second slower than his team mate at the Circuit Gilles Villeneuve. He continued to struggle with his car’s balance on Saturday despite being satisfied with the changes he made after the first day of practice.
“Since yesterday evening we did a good job and improved a lot the behaviour of the car,” said Raikkonen. “But today it was still not easy to put the car where I wanted.”
Raikkonen said the turn ten hairpin, the slowest corner on the circuit and scene of his spins in the 2014 and 2015 races, remains a trouble spot for him.
“It was a hectic qualifying session because of the weather conditions and I was not very happy with the driving,” he said. “I had some issues here and there, I struggled in turn ten all the times to make the front turn, and it was hard to put the lap together.”
“It has not been an easy weekend so far and if you finish P6 there’s still work to be done, but I’m sure that for the race tomorrow the car will be better.”
Vettel also said he lost time at turn ten during his lap, which put him third on the grid behind the two Mercedes.
“I lost a bit of time maybe on the exit of turn ten, I was maybe a bit too early on power, and that compromised the traction, which maybe caused me to lose some momentum onto the straight,” he said. “I don’t know how much, we’ll find out later, but probably half a tenth or something.”
NewVerstappenFan (@jureo)
12th June 2016, 11:33
Man. 15 years of F1 and he struggles to make turn 10 work.
Ferrari need to start thinking a bit, how many times Kimi is half a second off pace in quali.
With overtaking about to become harder in 2017, quali will become more important.
Ferrari need a faster #2.
Look at Red Bull, driver could not perform well, no problem, lets fix it.
Ferrari is not aggressive enough, first they had Massa for 4 seasons of underperformance.
Now Kimi 3 seasons of underperforming.
Look at Red Bull, their direct competition, 1 season and 5 races, despite outscoring Riciardo.
Imagine Ferrari had two Vettel like quality drivers yesterday. Maybe one wouldn’t make a mistake on final lap and got pole. But they rather just have one shot at pole than two drivers who are equally at it.
Karl
12th June 2016, 15:28
Have a look at the F1 points table …
John H (@john-h)
12th June 2016, 11:53
What do these excuses mean? You can either drive the car fast or you can’t. Kimi has been past his sell-by date for at least two seasons and I’d love to see a younger driver making the most of that seat. I could understand if there wasn’t someone in the other car just a couple of tenths of the Mercedes.
petebaldwin (@)
12th June 2016, 12:27
“I lost a bit of time maybe on the exit of turn ten, I was maybe a bit too early on power, and that compromised the traction, which maybe caused me to lose some momentum onto the straight”
No Seb, it’s not your fault. It’s a 3 year problem with the car!! Ask Kimi! Lol