Zoom Raikkonen pips Alonso to pole in Spain

Kimi Raikkonen today secured his first pole position of the season in qualifying for the Spanish Grand Prix. The result was the second pole of the season for Ferrari. Felipe Massa lines up third in the second F2008.

For the Finn, this was his 15th career pole, the second at this track, while the Scuderia’s total now moves up to 197, 13 of which were obtained at this Grand Prix.

Kimi Raikkonen
“I’ve been chasing pole for a while now, but for one reason or another, it always escaped me. But today I got it. There is no better place to start so I will try and make the most of that tomorrow. It will be important to get off the line well, getting through the first corner without any problems. Then it will be down to exploiting the car’s potential and that is definitely good. The race is what matters and tomorrow I want to bring home a nice result. So maybe it was not too bad doing so few laps in the dry in last week’s test, as we were able to work on set-up with a different approach. On my first run in Q3, I lost a bit of grip in the final sector, but then on the second set of tyres everything went well. The perfect lap? You can always do better.”

Felipe Massa
“I got a good lap with my first set of tyres in Q3, but that was not the case on my second, especially in the final sector of the track and that meant I could not improve on my time. When qualifying is as close as this it only takes the smallest of things to lose or gain a few places. I think we will be very competitive tomorrow, but we can expect a tough race. Anything can happen and we will have to give it our best shot to bring home the best result possible. We can count on a car that is good over a long run, which has been the case from last week’s test up to and including yesterday.”

Stefano Domenicali
“Obviously we are pleased with the result of today’s qualifying. We were expecting a very close fight and that’s what we got, to the extent that the top five are all within less than three tenths of a second of one another. This also shows we are up against some very strong opponents and we will have to do everything perfectly if we want to get a good result. All the signs point to this but that’s never enough: you also need reliability, a team and the drivers concentrating fully and a good strategy.”

Luca Baldisserri
“This was an incredibly close fight. Once again it demonstrated that you have to pay close attention to the smallest detail if you aspire to the top places, especially in qualifying. From what we have seen, for the race, we can run at a good pace over a distance and we will try and make the most of our grid positions. The crucial elements will be the same as ever: the start, the strategy, reliability and tyre performance. Our mood of cautious optimism from yesterday remains the same today.”

E.A. © CAPSIS International