Race - US GP report: Ferrari

Fourth place for Sebastian Vettel come the end of today’s United States Grand Prix at the Austin circuit. The result sees the German move up to fourth in the Drivers’ championship table. It was an unlucky Sunday for Kimi Raikkonen, who retired after 38 laps, following a problem during his third pit stop. Lewis Hamilton stood on the top step of the podium, having won for Mercedes.

Maurizio Arrivabene

“Obviously, we had hoped for a better result this weekend. Once again, though, we paid a heavy price for our qualifying position. In the race, our pace was definitely better than yesterday, and we could have fought for a podium finish. Now we move to Mexico straight away, and we will put our maximum effort and concentration into the next racing weekend.”

Kimi Raikkonen

“Obviously the end result of this race is far from ideal. It’s a pity because the performance of the car today was good. When we changed for Soft tires, for whatever reason I seemed to struggle. The balance was ok but I never really had the grip I was expecting. Once we went back to Supersofts the car was good again. When I left the pits after the third pit stop I slowed down a bit and asked if everything was ok because I saw some sparks coming out. At the end of the pitlane the team told me to stop. Now we have to understand what happened, the rear wheel nut had not fitted properly.”

Sebastian Vettel

“Overall today was a better day than yesterday, it was a good race. The start was not so good and into turn 1 I was quite lucky, given that somebody was hitting me, I think it was Nico Hülkenberg. Luckily nothing was broken so I could carry on. Then the pace was good, we were looking after the tires, so we could go longer than other people. The race was a bit different than we expected, we got a present from Max today but unfortunately also Kimi had some problems and had to retire. It could have been a good performance for the team with both cars in the points.”