Austrian Grand Prix – Ferrari’s Sebastian Vettel had his qualifying session ruined in Q3 when a mechanical issue forced him to sit in the pits and watch on.
Vettel had made it through into Q3 without issue after finishing two tenths down on Charles Leclerc’s pace-setting time, finishing P2 behind his Ferrari teammate.
Heading into Q3, Leclerc managed to snatch provisional pole with his first flying lap but it quickly became clear there were issues on the other side of the garage. Vettel’s car was being pored over by the mechanics and, with time rapidly running out, he clambered out of the car; the issue proving terminal for his qualifying.
Team boss Mattia Binotto explained what had gone wrong for Ferrari: “We are disappointed for Sebastian who could have had a great qualifying, but because of a trivial mechanical problem he could not leave the garage. Probably, because of riding over a kerb, a mechanical connection came apart resulting in a loss of pneumatic pressure to the engine. The mechanics tried their best to fix the problem but unfortunately, the connector is very inaccessible. However, we have no concerns about this for the race.”
Praising Sebastian for his response to the problem, Binotto said: “When Seb realised his session was over, he thanked his crew and spoke a few words of encouragement to Charles, who in turn, after taking pole had a few words of consolation for his team-mate.”
Vettel will start the race from P9, moving up a place due to the five place gearbox penalty for Haas’ Kevin Magnussen. However, he starts the race on the Soft tyre. In theory, this isn’t the optimal tyre to run for the first stint of the race but Binotto says that Ferrari intentionally chose that strategy: “We believe it’s the right one. Yesterday, we found they were very consistent and we are convinced that will also be the case tomorrow and could give us a performance advantage.”
Vettel, speaking after the session, said that it just wasn’t possible to get the problem fixed quickly enough: “It’s obviously bitterly disappointing on a day like this, when you have the car to fight for pole and you are not even taking part. There was a problem with the car so we lost a part of Q2 and all of Q3. We fairly quickly made a decision but we had to take the bodywork off and it was not easy to get to the faulty bit. The guys did everything they could but we could not fix it in time.
“I knew that if we’d fixed it, most likely I would have had only one run, so I was trying to focus only on that but it didn’t happen. As much as this is a pain, it’s good to see that Charles came through and got pole. I am happy for the team, obviously nor happy for my side.”
“I think our car is quick this weekend, quicker than the people in front of us so I am looking forward to a good day and a good race tomorrow.”
