US GP – QUALIFYING RESULTS – KIMI RÄIKKÖNEN SPACE

Report – Scuderia Ferrari secured places on the third and fourth rows of the grid come the end of qualifying for the United States Grand Prix, at the Circult of the Americas. Fernando Alonso will set off to tackle tomorrow’s 56 race laps from sixth place (1.37.610) alongside Daniel Ricciardo in the Red Bull. The Spaniard will have Kimi Raikkonen right behind him, given that although the Finn qualified ninth in 1.37.804, he moves up one place as Jenson Button (McLaren) has a gearbox change penalty.

Only four cars went out at the end of Q1 and Q2, as there were only 18 cars on track and Fernando and Kimi got through without any particular problems, although in Q2 the Finn had to use an extra set of Soft tyres.

Final Times:

Pos	Driver	Car	Time	Gap
1	Nico Rosberg	Mercedes	1m36.067s	–
2	Lewis Hamilton	Mercedes	1m36.443s	0.376s
3	Valtteri Bottas	Williams/Mercedes	1m36.906s	0.839s
4	Felipe Massa	Williams/Mercedes	1m37.205s	1.138s
5	Daniel Ricciardo	Red Bull/Renault	1m37.244s	1.177s
6	Fernando Alonso	Ferrari	1m37.610s	1.543s
7	Kevin Magnussen	McLaren/Mercedes	1m37.706s	1.639s
8	Kimi Raikkonen	Ferrari	1m37.804s	1.737s
9	Adrian Sutil	Sauber/Ferrari	1m38.810s	2.743s
10	Pastor Maldonado	Lotus/Renault	1m38.467s	–
11	Sergio Perez	Force India/Mercedes	1m38.554s	–
12	Jenson Button	McLaren/Mercedes	1m37.655s	–
13	Nico Hulkenberg	Force India/Mercedes	1m38.598s	–
14	Jean-Eric Vergne	Toro Rosso/Renault	1m39.250s	–
15	Esteban Gutierrez	Sauber/Ferrari	1m39.555s	–
16	Romain Grosjean	Lotus/Renault	1m39.679s	–
17	Daniil Kvyat	Toro Rosso/Renault	1m38.699s	–
18	Sebastian Vettel	Red Bull/Renault	1m39.621s	–

Penalties:

Button: Five places for gearbox change
Kvyat: Ten places for engine component change
Vettel: Pitlane start for taking sixth power unit

QUOTES

Kimi Raikkonen: “The behaviour of my car was better today than yesterday and I was reasonably happy with the balance, even if I still didn’t manage to put together a good enough lap to be higher up the grid. For some reason, we haven’t managed to fix a problem with the front end. In all sectors of the track the car tends to slide causing a lot of understeer. Unfortunately, this is a very limiting factor and not ideal. But as usual, tomorrow in the race, we will try our best to get the most out of what we have to work with. I am sure that by continuing to work, improving day by day, we will soon find a solution.”

Pat Fry: “The increase in temperature from free practice three meant that, in qualifying, it was as warm as the averages expected for tomorrow and produced an improvement in both the behaviour of the car and the performance of the tyres. Unfortunately, we struggled to get the Mediums up to temperature in Q1, while on the Softs, we were more or less where we should be on the first lap. As was the case in Sochi, tyre performance will play a key role here in Austin, even if the scenario is very different: we expect the soft compound to show quick degradation, while the harder one should allow us to run a more extended stint. However, during the race it will be very important to manage both compounds, because graining could severely affect performance. The start, reliability and pit work will be the factors on which to build our race tomorrow, as we try and gain some places.”