Kimi Raikkonen believes he ‘got absolutely nothing’ out of qualifying for the Belgian Grand Prix after he was plagued with vibration problems.
Despite qualifying fourth on the grid for tomorrow’s race, Raikkonen was heard complaining to his team of a vibration at the rear of his Ferrari in each of the three qualifying segments.
After showing strong pace in practice, Raikkonen was clearly frustrated to have not been able to offer a stronger challenge for pole.
“Obviously it didn’t help,” says Raikkonen of the issue. “It was a mess. I thought we had the car all weekend but then we got absolutely nothing out of it.”
When asked after the session what had caused the problems, Raikkonen admitted he and the team were not aware.
“Obviously we would fix if it we knew what was causing the vibration,” says Raikkonen. “It’s unfortunate, but wrong time, wrong place.”
2017 Belgian Grand Prix
- 2017 Belgian Grand Prix team radio transcript
- 2017 Belgian Grand Prix Predictions Championship results
- 2017 Belgian Grand Prix Star Performers
- “That’s a BS call”: 2017 Belgian GP team radio highlights
- Hamilton equals Schumacher’s pole record with 41 races to spare
Curvadelsur
26th August 2017, 19:46
Yes what surprice… It was looking too good for him.
KimiRaikkonen1207 (@kimiraikkonen1207)
26th August 2017, 20:50
Sigh…
eric
26th August 2017, 20:11
Look here”https://www.autosport.com/f1/news/131451/pirelli-investigating-spa-tyre-deformation
pirelli-investigating-spa-tyre-deformation
Buttface
26th August 2017, 21:28
Interesting. Thanks!
Hugh (@hugh11)
26th August 2017, 20:15
Shame, as he could’ve had pole or at least a front row start… Hope for him in the race though
George (@george)
26th August 2017, 21:33
Starting between Bottas and Verstappen doesn’t bode well.
C
27th August 2017, 4:34
Main problem is Verstappen is behind him who seems to be better at start of race.
Paul A (@paul-a)
26th August 2017, 23:42
I am wondering if this is a possible safety issue — from what I saw (only TV), I would not have been happy as a driver. Mario Isola (“racing manager”, the tech guru at Pirelli) is quoted as saying:
(1) “he had never seen an F1 tyre behave in such a way”
(2) [he is] “interested to better understand why we generate this vibration and what are the possible consequences.”
I’m also not sure how and why sky/coulthard reported that changing the wheel gun “cured” Raikkonen’s problem when he was fairly obviously continuing to report it to his team.
F1 (erroneously as far as I am concerned) still talks of “road relevance.” If the tyres on any of my cars behaved this way, I’d be on the phone to tech support faster than you could say “Pirelli monopoly.”
ChryslerNewYorker (@dantedenljung)
27th August 2017, 6:29
The new damper . . .
Patrickl (@patrickl)
27th August 2017, 11:42
It’s really weird how the teams have these inexplicable issues with the tyres. It’s like in Hungary where Hamilton was half a second faster than Bottas in Q1 and Q2 (and the race), yet in Q3 the tyres just didn’t work for both stints and he ended up even slower than in Q2.
Would have been nice to see Raikkonen battle for pole. He usually does well on this circuit.