It was a difficult weekend for a lot of teams at the Australian Grand Prix but Ferrari finds success even in the difficulty. While neither Scuderia driver, Fernando Alonso nor Kimi Raikkonen, wound up on the podium they both scored championship points. Alonso initially finished fifth and Kimi eighth but the disqualification of Red Bull driver Daniel Ricciardo, who finished second, bumped the Ferrari drivers up to fourth and seventh respectively. Ricciardo, an Australian native, received big cheers from his countrymen taking the podium but in post-race inspection it was found that his Red Bull Renault exceeded the maximum allowed fuel flow of 100 kg per hour. Red Bull says they fully intend on appealing the decision.
Raikkonen’s Grand Prix started off with a bang, literally. Rocketing his way into a lap one turn one retirement Kamui Kobayashi hit the back of Raikkonen’s car before collecting Felipe Massa. with Massa and Kobayashi ending their day in the gravel trap. Raikkonen was able to continue and he says there was no damage to the car from the incident. Raikkonen spoke about the race, via Ferrari’s website:
That wasn’t a straightforward race. At the start, I managed to get away well and even though I was hit from behind by another car at the first corner, my car was undamaged.
An ill=handling car didn’t make things any easier for the Finn to get up front. Multiple brake lockups nearly sent him off track more than once and the tyre wear on the car was not optimal but the Iceman retains optimism for the races going forward. More from Raikkonen,
The speed was good, but at one point I was suffering with graining on the front tyres, I had very little grip and a lot of understeer. From then on, the car’s handling was not the same. When it was time for the first stop, we had to do a double stop and that cost me a place. It’s definitely too early to make any definite judgment, because even if at the moment we don’t seem to be in great shape, we still managed to finish the race, scoring valuable points. We can’t be pleased with this result and we know there are many areas where we need to improve. But I’m sure that analyzing the data from this first race will give us a clearer idea of the direction to work in.
Alonso faired a little bit better on the weekend qualifying higher and finishing higher than his Ferrari teammate. He lost one spot right off the start to Nico Hulkenberg but was able to overtake Hulkenberg by staying out an extra lap before his second pit stop and kept Hulkenberg behind him for the remainder of the race.
Alonso would have obviously liked to be on the podium after the first race of the season but he knows they are still learning and gathering the necessary data to improve coming up to Malaysia on March 30th.
I’d have liked to start the season with a podium, but getting both cars to the flag is a good result, which can give us confidence, especially on the reliability front. I had some problems with the electric motor at the start and had to make a few changes from the steering wheel, but after the first ten laps everything went well.
We are a great team and I have total faith in our guys, because they did a great job today. We still have lots to learn about this new Formula 1, as the race was very strange and very difficult. But it’s only the start. We must concentrate on doing better in Malaysia.
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