Circuit Spa-Francorchamps
Date 23.08.2015
Laps 44
Distance 308,052 / 191,455 miles
No Driver Ferrari S/N Team Result
5 Sebastian Vettel SF15-T 311 Scuderia Ferrari retired/tyre
7 Kimi Raikkonen SF15-T 309 Scuderia Ferrari 7.

 

Belgian Grand Prix – Spa-Francorchamps, 23 August 2015

Posted: 23.08.2015
Source: Ferrari

Maurizio Arrivabene: “Of course we didn’t have the best week-end of the season. We chose an aggressive race strategy for Sebastian, which was going well according to plan, until unfortunately a tyre burst suddenly with two laps to go. As for Kimi, he started from sixteenth on the grid and finished seventh, well into the points. This shows a great reaction and stamina from the team. Now, with Spa already behind us, we focus on the next race in Monza.”

Kimi Raikkonen: “Obviously we cannot be very happy with where we finished, but it’s much better than from where we started. Yesterday we had some issues but today we wanted to get a better end result. My start was pretty bad, I had a lot of wheelspin and then obviously the first corner was not ideal, but I was able to recover quite well. My car was handling pretty well through all the race, only towards the end I ran out of the front tyres. Today we kept doing our best and tried to improve our position, but coming from so far back it was not easy. We keep trying and hopefully we have some more luck on our side in the future, we are doing the right things as a team but all the times something happens and we cannot get the result we expect. Now we go to Monza, our home race: it would be very nice to have a strong weekend there in front of all our fans. Again the track has a lot of straightlines and is not going to be easy against all those cars but we’ll bring some new stuff that hopefully will help us to be in fight.”

Sebastian Vettel:
“We deserved to finish on the podium but that’s racing; a different thing thought is not to finish the race because of what happened. I think this is not easy to accept for a driver, even if it’s not as bad as in Silverstone few years ago, but still we need to talk to each other as it can’t happen without prior notice. There’s no explanation for what happened: it’s not a puncture, the tire just exploded.”

Race

Pos. Time Gap Laps FL L
RAIKKONEN 7th 1:24:36.090 + 55.703 43 1:54.517 30
Pit-stop 1st stop Lap 11 New Soft
2nd stop Lap 21 New Medium
VETTEL 12th 1:23:28.582 DNF 42 1:55.316 29
Pit-stop 1st stop Lap 14 New Medium

Weather: air 23/25 °C, track 34/39 °C. Sunny

 

Belgian GP – A gamble

Posted: 23.08.2015
Source: Ferrari

Sebastian’s podium vanishes, Kimi seventh

Spa-Francorchamps, 23 August –The Spa race didn’t disappoint those hoping for plenty of action. Both drivers made a good start, immediately moving up a few places. A lot of overtaking and different strategies conditioned the outcome of the race: Kimi Raikkonen pitted twice, while Sebastian Vettel was the only driver to try for a one stop. With two laps to go, the German was third, but his right rear tyre suddenly let go, robbing him of a place on the podium. Kimi Raikkonen finished seventh, after a great climb up the order. The win went to Lewis Hamilton, who finished ahead of his Mercedes team-mate, Nico Rosberg and Romain Grosjean in the Lotus.

 

Belgian GP – Spa-Francorchamps, 22 August 2015

Posted: 22.08.2015
Source: Ferrari

Kimi Raikkonen: “I don’t know exactly what happened, I lost some drive and had to stop. It’s too early to say what the problem was, we have to wait to know more about the issue. Our car has been handling pretty nice all weekend, unfortunately the issue has come at the bad time, my position could have been a bit better.  Yesterday we had been trying few different things and I think we had made the right choices for today. Obviously  we know we have to improve in all areas. My starting position will make my race very tricky but I hope that the race condition will turn in our favour. It’s important to go through the first corner: even if it won’t be easy to get past Mercedes-engined cars, we’ll keep fighting and doing our best.”

Sebastian Vettel: “It’s very simple:  in Q2 we were third and it was very tight if you look at the lap times. In Q3 I was having the same pace, unfortunately I was not able to improve like others, also lost some time at the last corner, and that’s why we’re not in front. But I don’t think there’s a reason to panic. For sure we’re not happy, I lost two or maybe three tenths, but tomorrow we should have a decent pace and pretty good straightline speed to turn things around. We have a good car and a strong package for the race. There’s a lot to be done tomorrow, it’s a long race, the starting and first turn will be interesting and there could be some rain at some point. There’s nothing wrong so we’re expecting a progress.”

RAIKKONEN – Chassis 309

VETTEL – Chassis 311

Q1 P7 1:49.288 New Medium – 3 laps
New Soft – 3 laps
P6 1:49.264 New Medium – 3 laps
New Soft – 3 laps
Q2 P14 DNF New Soft – 2 laps P3 1:48.761 New Soft – 2 lapsNew Soft – 3 laps
Q3 P9 1:48.825 Old Soft – 3 laps
New Soft – 3 laps

Weather: air 24/26 °C, track 38/42 °C. Sunny

 

Belgian GP – A complicated qualifying

Posted: 22.08.2015
Source: Ferrari

Vettel starts ninth, Kimi stopped with a problem

Spa-Francorchamps, 22 August – Kimi Raikkonen endured a complicated qualifying session, having to park the car a few minutes before the end of Q2, when his car lost oil pressure. The Finn was ninth fastest at the time, but dropped to fourteenth because of the failure. In the other Ferrari, Sebastian Vettel was ninth fastest, making a mistake at the final corner, but will probably start from eighth because of a penalty for Romain Grosjean. The first row was locked out by Mercedes with Lewis Hamilton (1:47.197) on pole and Nico Rosberg (1:47.895) second.

 

Belgian GP – Runners-up

Posted: 22.08.2015
Source: Ferrari

Raikkonen and Vettel third and fourth in final free practice

Spa-Francorchamps, 22 August –Ferrari ended the final free practice session for the Belgian Grand Prix in third and fourth places, behind the dominant Mercedes duo of Lewis Hamilton (1.48.984) and Nico Rosberg (1.49.482.) In the final sixty minutes of track time prior to the all important qualifying session, Sebastian Vettel (1.49.629) and Kimi Raikkonen (1.49.864) worked on aerodynamic testing and fine tuning their SF15-Ts, as well as running a comparison of the two Pirelli compounds on offer in Belgium. They used two sets of Mediums before doing a final run on Softs.

 

Belgian GP – Spa-Francorchamps, 21 August 2015

Posted: 21.08.2015
Source: Ferrari

Kimi Raikkonen: “The day was not too bad, even if our programme  was a bit affected by the red flags, but then it was the same for everybody. In the end we were able to do all the work we had planned. Regarding the tires we had had a little bit of blistering in the front, which obviously was not ideal, but not a disaster either, there are many things we can do for this. Tomorrow  we’ll try our best and see what we can do for Sunday.”

Sebastian Vettel: “It’s obviously nice to come here after the last race and a great result, but we need to keep our feet on the ground. It’s a different circuit, different conditions again, so we’ll try to do our best as usual. Today it was not the best day for us, it was a bit difficult to find the rhythm, but for tomorrow I think we can do a step forward: we have to do so, because we don’t want to be tenth. I’m quite confident that we can tune up the car, because today I was not entirely happy with it: tomorrow it should be a better day.”

RAIKKONEN – chassis 309

VETTEL – chassis 311

First Session P4 1:51.478 23 laps P5 1:51.866 21 laps

Weather: air 22 °C, track 17/30 °C. Sunny

Second Session P5 1:50.461 23 laps P10 1:50.940 23 laps

Weather: air 22/26 °C, track 36/42 °C. Sunny

 

Belgian GP – A sizzling session

Posted: 21.08.2015
Source: Ferrari

Kimi fifth and Seb tenth

Spa-Francorchamps, 21 August – Scuderia Ferrari ended the second free practice session in Belgium with its drivers in fifth and tenth places courtesy of Kimi Raikkonen (1.50.461) and Sebastian Vettel (1.50.940) respectively. Fastest was Nico Rosberg, who posted a 1.49.385 in his Mercedes. The team focused on an evaluation of the Soft compound tyre and on finding the best set-up for tomorrow’s qualifying, while also keeping the race in mind. Temperatures are much higher than usual at this track, therefore the data acquired will be particularly useful.

 

Belgian GP – Different solutions

Posted: 21.08.2015
Source: Ferrari

Kimi fourth and Seb fifth in first free practice

Spa-Francorchamps, 21 August – Nico Rosberg set the fastest time in the first free practice session for the 48th Belgian Grand Prix, which kicks off the second half of the season here at the Spa circuit. On the Belgian track, at the wheel of their SF15-Ts, Kimi Raikkonen and Sebastian Vettel were fourth (1.51.478) and fifth (1.51.866) respectively, behind the Mercedes duo of Rosberg (1.51.082) and Lewis Hamilton (1.51.324) and Daniel Ricciardo in the Red Bull (1.51.373.) The Ferrari men ran two sets of Medium tyres, both working on car set-up and an evaluation of different aerodynamic configurations.

 

Scuderia Ferrari – Jumping on every opportunity

Posted: 20.08.2015
Source: Ferrari

Sebastian “realistic” about Spa chances but ready to take the fight

“It’s difficult to say where our chances stand with regard to our competitors here in Belgium, but obviously we can’t refer to the result of the last race. We must come into every Grand Prix weekend with a fresh approach. Having said that, we will give our maximum. I think Kimi is a very good driver, I’ve a good relationship with him and it’s good for the team, it keeps the stability in it. We can work together for Ferrari, trying to do our best. For sure everybody want to race for himself, but I don’t think neither he or myself have the egos to stand in the way of the team. I was not directly involved in the decision concerning his contract, but it is no secret that we get along well together. Both he and I are not wasting energies on petty things, so that we can focus on getting back to the top. I keep getting asked about championship chances: mathematically is still possible to win the title for me, but being realistic we all know that it would be very difficult, given the gap that is still there to our main competitors. For sure if we’ll have the opportunity like in Hungary to turn things around than we have to go for it. Until now we took the opportunity two times and it worked very well, otherwise we did our best to be right behind, but for sure the advantage of Mercedes is still there and it doesn’t just disappear. We’ll have new rules concerning start procedure this week, but I don’t think they are going to change much, apart from less radio coaching from the pit wall and fewer adjustments on the clutch. I think in a couple of racing we’ll know what to do properly.”

 

Scuderia Ferrari – “I feel great”

Posted: 20.08.2015
Source: Ferrari

Kimi all revved up by 2016 contract extension

“I feel great, I’m really happy to be with Ferrari for one more year, it’s a great team to be with, there’s a great team effort and a great atmosphere and I’m sure we can do great things for the future. Compared to last year Ferrari made a better car, we are improving all the time and the results are showing that. The feeling in the team and the way people are working together are the best I’ve ever found. In the second part of the current season we’ll have to do better, trying to minimize mistakes and problems, aiming for the front all the time. Next year I’m sure we can have a good car, because we have all the people and the tools to do better. On Sunday it will be the 900th Grand Prix for Ferrari, I have had great moments with the team, it’s great to be part of a team with so much history, and we’ve achieved a lot together. Spa is a very nice place to come, it’s a great circuit for the drivers and the spectators. Things here are never easy, everything can suddenly change and the race can be quite exciting for everybody. We’ll try to have a good weekend and see where we end up.”

 

Belgian GP – A very technical track

Posted: 19.08.2015
Source: Ferrari

The Gutiérrez view

Maranello, 19 August – “Being part of Scuderia Ferrari is something special and you are even more aware of that when it comes to celebrating an important anniversary like this one – 900 Formula One Grand Prix participations. It’s an impressive number and celebrating it on a wonderful track like Spa makes it even more special.” Esteban Gutiérrez, Scuderia Ferrari’s third driver tells ferrari.com what he likes about the Belgian circuit. “It’s a very technical track, a real test for drivers, which is why everyone wants to do well here. There are a lot of quick corners and changes of gradients: in the first sector, you push very hard and tackle Eau Rouge flat out. The weather always plays a key role over the weekend: it can be raining at one part of the track and not at another, so strategy and the ability to react quickly are decisive factors.”

 

Belgian Grand Prix – Off again at a classic circuit

Posted: 18.08.2015
Source: Ferrari

Scuderia Ferrari’s 900th race

Maranello, 18 August –The Formula One World Championship resumes after the summer break with one of its most historic rounds at the Spa-Francorchamps circuit. The Belgian race will actually mark Scuderia Ferrari’s 900th Grand Prix participation.
Kimi Raikkonen, the king of Spa, with four wins to his name there is really looking forward to the weekend. “I love racing on this track, it’s very nice and it has all the appeal of the circuits of days gone by. Usually, it’s a very exciting race, with a lot of overtaking, but much depends on the weather and what tyre compounds are available. My best win? Definitely the one in 2009, because we didn’t have a particularly quick car, but thanks to a good start we managed to get a great result”. “The fact we won in Hungary doesn’t change our approach to the next race,” adds Alberto Antonini, head of communications for Scuderia Ferrari. “We didn’t think we were going through a crisis after Silverstone and we don’t believe we are brilliant now. We are keeping our feet on the ground, as we know we are up against some very strong opposition, but we will give it our best shot as always.”

 

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