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Kimi Raikkonen believed his qualifying session at Spa on Saturday was particularly messy, with tyre vibrations coming and going throughout each qualifying session. The Finn feels he may have been robbed of an opportunity to start on the front row as oppose to the second row he finds himself on starting fourth.
“It was a messy qualifying: all the way through the session I had some vibrations in the car that kept coming and going. It’s hard to know how much they affected the lap time, but for sure it did not help. It’s very disappointing because so far the weekend had gone very smoothly. I felt we had all the tools to do well, the car was good and we had the speed.”
The newly-signed Finn has been neck and neck with his Ferrari team mate for much of the weekend. However, with the vibrations coupled with a mistake at turn 9 it meant Raikkonen will start fourth lining up on the second row with his fellow Finn Valterri Bottas while his Ferrari team mate Sebastian Vettel lines up second next to pole man Lewis Hamilton.
Raikkonen feels it may be a tough race with tyres and that qualifying did not help the situation but puts that down to it being the “wrong time wrong place” and is hopeful for a stress-free race.
“In the last run I was off to a good start, but then I started struggling with the tyre temperatures and made a mistake, got sideways at turn 9 and it was pretty much the end of it. Fourth position is not a disaster but it is far from what I wanted. It’s unfortunate, wrong time wrong place. It’s going to be quite tricky with the tyres for everybody: hopefully we’ll have a straightforward race and make the right decisions.”
Sian Williams
Azerbaijan Grand Prix
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