https://www.motorsport.com/f1/news/v...-in-q3-891070/
"Vettel "chickened" on final corner in Q3"
Ferrari Formula 1 driver Sebastian admitted he "chickened" by braking early for the final corner on his Chinese Grand Prix qualifying lap, although the loss didn't cost him pole position.
Vettel qualified second, 0.186s behind the Mercedes of Lewis Hamilton, and just 0.001s of a second ahead of Valtteri Bottas.
The 29-year-old was surprised to be so far off Hamilton, but was happy with his performance during qualifying.
"I enjoyed it a lot, if we could have been a bit quicker at the end I would have enjoyed it more," said Vettel. "The last corner, maybe I lost a little bit and chickened onto the brakes too soon.
"Obviously it was very close with Valtteri, so a good job we just got enough margin to make it to the front row."
Vettel believes the performance in China confirms Ferrari is a little slower than Mercedes in qualifying trim.
But he was 0.082s closer to Hamilton than he was in Australia, and over a longer laptime, and is confident the Ferrari will be stronger in the race.
It's unclear where Mercedes stands on race pace given there was no meaningful running during Friday practice.
"In qualifying, we lack a bit and in the race it is a close match," said Vettel. "In Australia, in the race, Lewis was struggling with tyres and us less.
"No matter what conditions are, the car is working so then we will try to do the fastest race."
Hamilton said the pace of Vettel and Ferrari had impressed him during practice and much of qualifying before he took pole position with a lap that started slowly, possibly because the tyres weren't up to temperature.
"Ferrari have looked so fast in practice this morning and in qualifying we knew it was going to be close, so I needed a perfect lap," said Hamilton.
"The last lap was my best lap, which is always the plan. The lap started off not as good as Q1 but the rest of the lap it got better and better."
It seems Bottas, so far, seems to be doing a great job for Mercedes for his first year and only 2 GP's....it's possible he could get a contract renewal with MB.
The "Stroll - er" did'nt do bad for a rookie and made it to Q3 qualifying 10th.
So I've watched the rerun of qualifying and it's remarkable that the result is almost identical to Melbourne. Two completely different circuits with the same top 4 result so early in the season and one RBR in fifth with basicly the same margins between drivers.
I sincerely hope this pattern continues in the race as well and that we'll see the same result as in Melbourne. Now the only question remaining is, if the start goes the same, will hamilton pit earlier again or was it a mistake by Merc by doing so and also not calculating well enough where he would emerge on the track? If it shows that the win wasn't a fluke them I'm on the train.
Vettel admitted he almost spun the rears in the last race....but that was on dry and conditions so far are looking at a wet track.....a deluge????? possible SC throughout the race and on some turns there are literally streams of water. Glad to know they smoothed out that "depression" on the final turn going down the straight on the pit side as most in the past would make the final turn and still turn left of avoid that right bump/depression (even more so while rain/drizzzle).
Well, if it's a wet race then trying to judge the pecking order by the race result will not be possible anyway. But obviously the points will count the same towards both championships. I actually hope for a dry race otherwise Ricciardo will be with a chance of winning and we need every point we can gain now prior to the development race starting around Barcelona.
So impressed with our car. We'll be in the race whether wet or dry tomorrow. Can't wait already
if we don't win the wcc and wdc this year, i'm pretty much confident we will win next year.
Forza Ferrari
is it just me...or have you guys noticed this or what...come qualifying sky only shows hammys run... none of ferrarri's or bottas's. such a biased broadcast...
so basically merc still ahead in fast and twitchy corners...
and in the straights too...
Bottas was 2 tenths down from Lewis ( who is P1 and set a lap record ) during Q3...so I would think he is putting in a great effort....he is doing just fine for MB IMHO...solid performance so far in both GP's. In Melbourne, he was catching up to Lewis and got team orders to slow it down and conserve the tyres.
One more thing: 5.91cm (centimeters) seperates him from the front row.
Last edited by jgonzalesm6; 8th April 2017 at 18:34.
Seb on first row says there are ‘lots of chances’ for the race
Shanghai, April 8th – “Tomorrow is another day” said Seb over the radio, sending thanks to all the team at the end of his qualifying lap which yielded Position 2 on the grid.“It was a bit closer than in Australia, so a good session overall with lots of chances for tomorrow. We’ll see what the race can bring, with the different conditions and everything. Of course I would have liked to be even closer, knowing that the Mercedes would be very strong in Q3, as they proved to be. We had some luck with Valtteri, because when you’re a thousand of a second apart, it could be one way or the other. I was happy with my lap, even if I braked a bit too early for the last corner, hit the kerb hard and had to wait for the car to settle. That’s where I lost a bit of time, but not all the gap to Lewis. There wasn’t much more I could have gained. So this result on a totally different track, with conditions significantly cooler than Melbourne, is definitely good news. The confidence is there, I trust what the car is telling me and she seems to respond to what I tell her. It’s a good match but we need to improve further
Kimi after 4th grid place: details need to be improved
Shanghai, April 8th – Kimi Raikkonen had been consistently fast throughout qualifying, then lost out a little bit right at the end, where hundredths of seconds make the difference. He ended up with fourth on the grid. “I’m not that surprised from the result after strong performance in Q2, because in the end I was struggling a bit with the front end, especially in the first corners; in Turn 3 there was not much we could gain. It has been tricky to get everything right, with the limited running we had yesterday, and we’re still not 100 per cent where we want to be, up there in front. There are some details in the set-up that need to be improved, and as you push more they become more apparent, but it’s already better than in Melbourne. Handling-wise the car wasn’t bad, even though I had experienced understeer in the beginning and then, for whatever reason, it changed to oversteer. In Q2 I made two runs, because we had tires available so why not go out and see what the other cars were doing? Conditions will be different for tomorrow and there will be a bit of guessing for everyone if it rains, so we’ll see”.
CAVALLINO RAMPANTE PER SEMPRE
Shanghai Weather for today.....hourly
https://weather.com/weather/hourbyhour/l/CHXX0116:1:CH
Putting in a great effort and actually doing your job are two different things. He was brought to help Hamilton win the championship and he is not doing it if he is in 3rd place no matter what the difference to Hamilton is.
For instance in Australia if he would have qualified 2nd and held back Vettel so Hamilton could safely pit and win the race - that would be him doing his job. What he really did was putting in a great effort and finished 3rd while Vettel won the race
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