quoteKimi and Seb look ahead to Sepang’s hot challenge: “We should be OK here”
Sepang – Another track, another race weekend. For the two Scuderia Ferrari drivers, Kimi and Seb, the last edition of the Malaysian Grand Prix is all they’re focused on.
“It’s a new race weekend” says Kimi “and our approach is always the same; we’ll do our best trying to be one and two at the end. I have good memories from Sepang, as this is where I won my first race in 2003, it was a great day. And I won again for Scuderia Ferrari in 2008, so it’s more good memories. The circuit is nice to drive; conditions can be quite extreme in many ways and the track is demanding for both the car and the driver. It can be very hot and then suddenly rain may come, and when it’s raining here there’s so much water that you cannot drive anymore because of the aquaplaning. It’s hard to know what will happen this weekend, but from tomorrow we will understand more. I have the feeling that we should be ok, but who knows. We’ll start smoothly and hopefully we can have a good weekend”.
Like his team-mate, Seb has turned the page on the bitterness of the last Grand Prix. “We talked about what happened in Singapore and we moved on. The reaction of the team has been good and we were all enthusiastic about coming here. We know we have a strong package, so now let’s see what we can do. I want to win the next races and I don’t need to think about anything else. I think we can still win and count on ourselves. It’s up to us to make good use of our package. We have shown in most of the races that we are competitive and we still want to improve. I am looking forward to racing here, and then we still have a lot of races ahead and a lot of things may happen”.
quoteKimi Raikkonen: “I will help Sebastian, just as I would expect help from him” Ferrari is expected to bring a new-specification power unit in Malaysia
The incident which took place at the start of the 2017 Singapore Grand Prix has basically put at end to Scuderia Ferrari’s chances of challenging Mercedes in the Formula 1 Constructor Standings. Kimi Raikkonen, Sebastian Vettel and Max Verstappen collided in the first lap at the Marina Bay Street Circuit, ending their race prematurely on a circuit where the Maranello team were seen as favourites to win and reduce the deficit to Mercedes.
At the same time, Kimi Raikkonen now only has a slim mathematical chance of winning the world title and the Finnish driver is more than willing to to contribute to Ferrari’s only hope of winning a title this season, which is Sebastian Vettel’s fight with Mercedes driver Lewis Hamilton, who currently has a comfortable 28-point advantage over the Maranello team’s German driver (the largest of the season to date), with six races until the end of the 2017 Formula One championship. The odds are not in Scuderia Ferrari’s favour, but Kimi Raikkonen says that he will do everything possible to play his part in a positive final part of the season and a strong recovery by Sebastian Vettel in order to keep the title fight open until the last Grand Prix of the year: “As drivers, we know exactly what Ferrari expects from us. Of course I will help Seb when it comes to the world title, just as I would expect help from him.” – the Finnish driver explained, as reported by Speed Week.
Kimi Raikkonen looks set to get right behind Sebastian Vettel’s campaign to catch up with Lewis Hamilton in the next two months, but the next race, the 2017 Malaysian Grand Prix, seems to once again favour Mercedes given the track characteristics of the Sepang International Circuit. However, Kimi is confident the Maranello team can have a strong weekend and bounce back after the unfortunate events in Singapore: “You assume it will be difficult for us. We don’t. We go there, it is another race, another weekend, and we go there full of fight and we will do our best.” – the Finnish driver concluded.
Scuderia Ferrari is expected to roll out on schedule a new-specification power unit in Malaysia next weekend, with the Italian team clear in its ambition to get both cars on the podium at the Marina Bay Street Circuit. The concern for Sebastian Vettel now is not simply that he faces a win-at-all-costs scenario; rather, the German’s most likely strategy back into contention relies on things outside his control. And given the fact that it is unlikely for Vettel to finish ahead of his main title rival in each of the final six races, Sebastian’s only other hope, therefore, is that his Ferrari teammate, Kimi Raikkonen, can insert himself into the front-running permutations to take points off Lewis Hamilton.
Share this article on Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Google+ Email The Ferrari Formula 1 team's pacesetting Malaysian Grand Prix practice form was a surprise, according to Red Bull's Daniel Ricciardo.
After a rain-hit opening practice session, Sebastian Vettel topped the times in a dry second practice, finishing 0.604 seconds clear of Ferrari team-mate Kimi Raikkonen.
Red Bull showed good pace in wet conditions and was Ferrari's closest challenger in the second session, with Ricciardo and Max Verstappen third and fourth, around 0.83s off the pace, and the Mercedes duo a further seven tenths back.
"Ferrari looked a bit stronger than we thought," said Ricciardo.
"We thought Mercedes would lead the pack and we would be a bit closer to Ferrari - but Mercedes had a few issues today by the looks of it.
"I saw some of Lewis's onboards and they looked like they were fighting the car. Maybe they are running 80kg of fuel, I don't know!
"We were looking pretty good in the wetter conditions this morning.
"On the intermediates I thought we had the pace, significantly quicker than everyone else. We are not sure why, but we will take it.
"This afternoon, we weren't that competitive looking at Ferrari but it looked like Mercedes struggled as well."
Verstappen said Ferrari looks "very competitive' but he hoped his Red Bull team could close the gap at the weekend progressed.
"The car was not too bad," he said. "We just need to check where we can still improve because we are still not quick enough compared to Ferrari.
"But I am quite confident we can be closer tomorrow.
"If it is enough, I don't know. But it is not bad, I don't have massive issues with the car."
Vettel remained cautious about Ferrari's pace at Sepang and expects Mercedes to bounce back on Saturday.
"It would be nice to carry that [pace] through the whole weekend but I don't know what other people were doing today," said Vettel.
"It looked like they [Mercedes] were both struggling in the morning and afternoon. I'm pretty sure they will be fine tomorrow.
"In the end, it's Friday, when you can play around and try some things.
"The car seemed to be quite OK from the beginning.
"Then we tried some things and unfortunately we couldn't finish the session the way we wanted with the red flag [for Romain Grosjean's crash].
"We didn't get the amount of laps that everyone was looking for.
"We would have liked to have played around some more and get some more answers but overall it was a decent afternoon."
Share this article on Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Google+ Email Sebastian Vettel beat Ferrari Formula 1 team-mate Kimi Raikkonen to the fastest time before second Malaysian Grand Prix practice was curtailed by a crash caused by a dislodged drain cover.
The session was red-flagged and ended just under 10 minutes early when Romain Grosjean crashed his Haas heavily having hit the drain cover.
Replays showed the Grosjean hit the cover on the Turn 12 inside kerb, after it had been flicked up by Valtteri Bottas's Mercedes, with his right-rear.
That destroyed the tyre and pitched Grosjean off the track and into the wall.
The drain cover was subsequently removed by a marshal, with FIA F1 race director Charlie Whiting and FIA safety director Laurent Mekies heading out to assess the damage.
After an initial inspection, and with a little under 10 minutes to go, it was decided the session would not be restarted.
Earlier, Vettel had clocked a 1m31.261s on the Pirelli super-soft compound tyres to finish the day 0.604 seconds clear of Raikkonen up front, while Mercedes had a scrappy session.
Following the morning rain, practice two was completely dry and teams quickly got to work on a mixture of medium, soft and super-soft tyres.
Vettel set the early pace on the soft tyre, clocking 1m32.456s, with Bottas running off track at the Turn 11 right-hander and skating into the gravel before returning to the pits.
Moments later, Lewis Hamilton dipped the first kerb at the Turn 7/8 double-right and lost the rear, pitching him into a spin and across the gravel. He was also able to rejoin and return to the garage.
Max Verstappen was the first driver to turn his attention to a qualifying simulation, bolting on the super-softs and improving to second, 0.283s off Vettel's leading time on the soft.
Daniel Ricciardo then went quickest on the super-softs with a 1m32.099s, but his time as the top was shortlived as Raikkonen and the Vettel went quicker still.
Mercedes got both drivers back out after their trips into the gravel, but Bottas could only manage fifth, 1.459s adrift of Vettel.
Hamilton was only able to go fractionally quicker to slot into fifth, and both were demoted a position when Fernando Alonso put in an impressive lap to go a tenth faster and slot his McLaren-Honda into fifth behind Verstappen.
Attention then turned to long-run data gathering in the final third of the 90-minute session.
Force India got two cars in the top 10, with Sergio Perez and Esteban Ocon sandwiching Renault's Nico Hulkenberg in eighth and 10th respectively.
Jolyon Palmer was 11th quickest, just over three tenths slower than team-mate Hulkenberg while Stoffel Vandoorne was 1.1 seconds adrift of McLaren team-mate Alonso.
Felipe Massa made up for failing to set a lap time in the morning by clocking up 20 laps and achieving the 12th fastest time, two places and four tenths quicker than Williams team-mate Lance Stroll.
FP2 times
POS DRIVER CAR TIME GAP LAPS 1 Sebastian Vettel Ferrari 1m31.261s - 23 2 Kimi Raikkonen Ferrari 1m31.865s 0.604s 19 3 Daniel Ricciardo Red Bull/Renault 1m32.099s 0.838s 19 4 Max Verstappen Red Bull/Renault 1m32.109s 0.848s 11 5 Fernando Alonso McLaren/Honda 1m32.564s 1.303s 14 6 Lewis Hamilton Mercedes 1m32.677s 1.416s 15 7 Valtteri Bottas Mercedes 1m32.720s 1.459s 21 8 Sergio Perez Force India/Mercedes 1m32.862s 1.601s 20 9 Nico Hulkenberg Renault 1m33.060s 1.799s 24 10 Esteban Ocon Force India/Mercedes 1m33.096s 1.835s 24 11 Jolyon Palmer Renault 1m33.381s 2.120s 26 12 Felipe Massa Williams/Mercedes 1m33.394s 2.133s 20 13 Stoffel Vandoorne McLaren/Honda 1m33.673s 2.412s 15 14 Lance Stroll Williams/Mercedes 1m33.818s 2.557s 16 15 Pierre Gasly Toro Rosso/Renault 1m34.043s 2.782s 22 16 Carlos Sainz Toro Rosso/Renault 1m34.104s 2.843s 19 17 Romain Grosjean Haas/Ferrari 1m34.118s 2.857s 18 18 Kevin Magnussen Haas/Ferrari 1m34.343s 3.082s 17 19 Pascal Wehrlein Sauber/Ferrari 1m35.246s 3.985s 29 20 Marcus Ericsson Sauber/Ferrari 1m35.697s 4.436s 27
How quickly things can change in Formula 1. Ferrari's Sebastian Vettel should have been heading to the Malaysian Grand Prix having taken back control of the fight for the world championship, but instead he trails Mercedes rival Lewis Hamilton by a huge 28-point margin.
That's the largest points difference we've seen between F1 2017's two main protagonists all year. Back in May, Vettel led Hamilton by 25 points after beating team-mate Kimi Raikkonen home in a Ferrari one-two at the Monaco Grand Prix.
It took Hamilton seven races of hard grind to turn that deficit around, and now there are only six left for Vettel to attempt similar.
Singapore should have arguably been Ferrari's strongest race of the season bar Monaco. Vettel said he didn't really know what happened in the split seconds that led to the disastrous startline crash that took him, Raikkonen and Red Bull's Max Verstappen out of the race.
But what Vettel does know is that he should have won that race easily under normal circumstances, and now has a mountain to climb if he is to deny Hamilton a fourth title, and claim a fifth crown for himself.
Vettel's aggressive defence of the lead after a slow start from pole in Singapore was most likely born from desperation. Ferrari does not have the quickest car at most circuits, despite what Hamilton often claims, and Vettel knew he needed to absolutely maximise his result at a place where Ferrari was unquestionably strong, and Mercedes particularly weak.
The picture is likely to be far less clear cut in Malaysia. Vettel won this race for Ferrari in 2015, but with help from a wet qualifying session, Mercedes mistakenly giving up track position behind the safety car, and struggling to keep its engines cool in the searing heat.
On pure pace, particularly with Hamilton at the wheel, Mercedes has tended to be very strong at Sepang in F1's V6 hubrid turbo era. The circuit features several long straights where F1's class-leading engine can really flex its muscle.
Hamilton said after his unexpected victory in Singapore that he expects Mercedes "should be OK" in Malaysia. His confidence will stem from the fact the Sepang circuit's layout is not dissimilar to Silverstone, where Mercedes utterly trounced Ferrari in the British Grand Prix.
Hamilton has to start as favourite this weekend, on a circuit where he has claimed pole for the past three consecutive seasons.
Ferrari will hope that its unexpectedly strong performance in August's Belgian Grand Prix at Spa, where Vettel finished only a couple of seconds shy of victory after a race-long pursuit of Hamilton, will carry over to Malaysia.
Spa is another circuit with a good blend of long straights, fast and flowing corners, and some slower-speed stuff, so it seems Ferrari has corrected some of the reasons it was so far off the pace at Silverstone.
It has also tended to do well in hotter conditions, and races don't come much hotter or more humid than Malaysia...
This year's race will be the last Malaysian Grand Prix to be held, as the Sepang event will fall off the F1 calendar next season. If you want to experience the full force of F1 2017 in the flesh and get as close to the action as possible, your best bet is to book a tour with F1 Experiences, the official ticket and tour provider for Formula 1.
As well as witnessing the latest chapter in the Hamilton versus Vettel title battle, you can enjoy privileged off-track access totrackside hospitality (including Paddock Club parties), pit lane walks, walking tours of the paddock, expert-led driving tours of the circuit, podium ceremony access and photo opportunities, and exclusive meet-and-greets with F1 drivers past and present.
Previous appearances have included double world champion Fernando Alonso, 1990s F1 champions Damon Hill and Jacques Villeneuve, and rising stars like Sergio Perez, Nico Hulkenberg, Esteban Ocon, Romain Grosjean, and Max Verstappen.
Verstappen is sure to be another key player in the Malaysian Grand Prix. The fearless Dutchman and his Red Bull team-mate Daniel Ricciardo finished one-two in last year's race and can never be discounted - especially if conditions are wet (always a possibility in Malaysia).
But ultimately, this should be another chapter in the Lewis Hamilton versus Sebastian Vettel saga at the front, with Valtteri Bottas and Kimi Raikkonen right with them and the Red Bulls battling to somehow get their cats among the leading pigeons.
Vettel will be hoping Bottas, Raikkonen and the Red Bulls are on top form, because his ailing championship aspirations could really use some help after what happened in Singapore.
Share this article on Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Google+ Email Lewis Hamilton narrowly beat Ferrari's Kimi Raikkonen to pole position for Formula 1's final Malaysian Grand Prix, as title rival Sebastian Vettel's Ferrari suffered engine problems and qualified last.
Mercedes struggled to get its upgraded F1 car working properly throughout the free practice sessions at the Sepang circuit, but turned things around just in time for Hamilton to get the job done in qualifying.
Hamilton's first flying lap in Q3 proved just enough in the end, as Raikkonen - who was fastest of all in Q2 - fell short by just 0.045 seconds after locking up at the final corner.
The second Mercedes of Valtteri Bottas was not so comfortable as Hamilton in qualifying, struggling particularly through the second sector. Bottas ended up only fifth fastest, behind both Red Bulls.
Max Verstappen split Raikkonen and Hamilton in Q2, but fell back in Q3, ending up third fastest, almost half a second away from pole. Team-mate Daniel Ricciardo was only half a tenth further back in fourth.
Vettel should have been among the fight for pole, having set the pace on Friday, but his Ferrari suffered a problem in final practice, so Ferrari worked through the break between sessions to change his engine.
Vettel made it out for the start of Q1, but reported a loss of drive, which he described as feeling "like I have no turbo", that he couldn't fix with the switch changes suggested by his team.
Vettel was forced back to the pits without setting a time and couldn't return to the track, leaving him last in the classification.
This could strike another serious blow to his world championship challenge, after losing his points lead to Hamilton after crashing out on lap one last time out in Singapore.
Esteban Ocon took advantage of Vettel's absence to post the sixth quickest time for Force India, ahead of Stoffel Vandoorne's McLaren, Nico Hulkenberg's Renault, Force India team-mate Sergio Perez, and the second McLaren of Fernando Alonso.
Felipe Massa and Jolyon Palmer (who was investigated but not punished for colliding with Verstappen in final practice) were both dumped out of the top 10 in the dying moments of Q2, as Perez, Vandoorne and Alonso all leaped ahead with quicker lap times.
Massa ended up an agonising 0.024s away from making the cut in 11th, ahead of Palmer, Williams team-mate Lance Stroll - who complained of a bad outlap compromising his second run - and the Toro Rossos of Carlos Sainz Jr and Pierre Gasly.
Neither Toro Rosso driver found time on their second Q2 runs, and Gasly ended up qualifying just 0.156s behind Sainz for his F1 debut, though by lapping slower than he managed in Q1.
Haas team-mates Romain Grosjean and Kevin Magnussen failed to make it through to Q2, by more than three tenths of a second, as faster rivals made late improvements and knocked them into the drop zone.
Pascal Wehrlein got his Sauber to within half a tenth of a second of beating Magnussen to 17th place on the grid.
Marcus Ericsson was almost half a second slower in the second Sauber and slowest of those to set a time.
Malaysian GP grid
POS DRIVER CAR TIME GAP 1 Lewis Hamilton Mercedes 1m30.076s - 2 Kimi Raikkonen Ferrari 1m30.121s 0.045s 3 Max Verstappen Red Bull/Renault 1m30.541s 0.465s 4 Daniel Ricciardo Red Bull/Renault 1m30.595s 0.519s 5 Valtteri Bottas Mercedes 1m30.758s 0.682s 6 Esteban Ocon Force India/Mercedes 1m31.478s 1.402s 7 Stoffel Vandoorne McLaren/Honda 1m31.582s 1.506s 8 Nico Hulkenberg Renault 1m31.607s 1.531s 9 Sergio Perez Force India/Mercedes 1m31.658s 1.582s 10 Fernando Alonso McLaren/Honda 1m31.704s 1.628s 11 Felipe Massa Williams/Mercedes 1m32.034s 1.958s 12 Jolyon Palmer Renault 1m32.100s 2.024s 13 Lance Stroll Williams/Mercedes 1m32.307s 2.231s 14 Carlos Sainz Toro Rosso/Renault 1m32.402s 2.326s 15 Pierre Gasly Toro Rosso/Renault 1m32.558s 2.482s 16 Romain Grosjean Haas/Ferrari 1m33.308s 3.232s 17 Kevin Magnussen Haas/Ferrari 1m33.434s 3.358s 18 Pascal Wehrlein Sauber/Ferrari 1m33.483s 3.407s 19 Marcus Ericsson Sauber/Ferrari 1m33.970s 3.894s 20 Sebastian Vettel Ferrari - -
quoteKimi Raikkonen disappointed with Malaysia qualifying performance
After missing out on a second pole position of 2017, Kimi Raikkonen saysa he was disappointed with his qualifying result in relation to his strong showing of performance this weekend.
Raikkonen topped final practice before qualifying, however, in the all important session failed to carry his momentum, being pipped to pole position by Lewis Hamilton by a narrow 0.045 second gap.
"It’s okay but obviously when you get that close it’s disappointing, but I thought I made the most out of it," said the Finn.
"There’s always places to improve, never going to get 100% perfect anyway, you always find some things to improve. The car has been behaving nicely all weekend, a pleasure so far.
Despite starting from second, winning the Malaysian Grand Prix is still an option for Raikkonen, providing that he manages to make it to the first corner.
"We try to get further than 100 metres tomorrow, and we’ll see what we can do," said Raikkonen. "It’s a long way [to turn 1], so if you make a good start you will benefit quite a bit from it," adding that he will take the race as it comes after the first three corners.
As Sebastian Vettel failed to complete a lap in qualifying which leaves him starting at the back of the grid, it is imperative for Raikkonen to challenge Hamilton in Sunday's race if Ferrari is to close in on Mercedes in the Constructors' Championship and so Vettel's hope of a fifth Drivers' Championship tite remains alive.
quoteKimi P2, Seb with no lap times: “We’ve got a a chance, and a good car to recover”
Sepang, Malaysia – On a day in which Kimi showed the potential of Scuderia Ferrari by taking P2 on the grid after a hard-fought battle, Seb was unable to set a time due to a problem which prevented the compressor from feeding air to the engine properly. A new V6 engine had been fitted to his SF70 after P3 for precautionary reasons, and the engine came complete with parts which had been run before and were factory-proven. Nevertheless, the Team is determined to fight to the end.
“Straight away I understood there was something wrong” said Seb. “Today we had decided to change the engine after P3, then I went out and everything seemed to work, but during the flying lap in turn 5, I suddenly felt like I was losing power. I was lucky to limp back to the garage so that we could have a look. Unfortunately, we couldn’t fix the problem. We tried to find the issue when we took the engine cover off, but we couldn’t find anything wrong. So, we decided to fire it up and see if we could drive again. As soon as the engine was running, we could see the issue was still there. It’s a shame because the car is quick, but tomorrow we should be able to fight back. I don’t have expectations in terms of numbers, but anything can happen and that’s why we race. I want to be sure we can achieve our best. We need to know why we got the issue today and make sure it won’t happen again. This kind of thing can happen in our sport, but the race is tomorrow. We need to be positive”.
Kimi had this to say about his qualifying: “Our car has been handling well all weekend. Today in qualifying we got close, but we would have needed a fractionally faster lap time. I think that the car had it, but you can always lose a little bit here and there. It’s disappointing not to be first, but tomorrow is going to be a long race for both cars and tires. I have the feeling that we have a good car and a very good chance for the race. If it’s going to be dry we are probably more confident, but our car has been good in both conditions and with all fuel loads. What happened to Seb is disappointing, very unfortunate for him and for the team. The guys did an excellent job to change all the parts getting the car back in one piece and ready to go, but then unfortunately he had to stop. Tomorrow is another day, he will have good speed and I’m sure that he can recover well”.
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Thu Sep 28, 2017 8:35 pm
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And poor Seb 
Jalumi 
No start from Kimi! What a mess 