FORMULA ONE - F1: KERS Would Make Ferrari Quicker, Says Massa

Formula 1

F1: KERS Would Make Ferrari Quicker, Says Massa

Ferrari's Felipe Massa was a disappointed man after failing to make Q3 in China for the second consecutive race weekend.

SPEED Staff | Posted April 18, 2009 Shanghai (CHN)

Massa failed to make it to Q3 (LAT)

Ferrari's Felipe Massa was a disappointed man after failing to make Q3 in China for the second consecutive race weekend.

Having been eliminated in Q1 in Malaysia due to an oversight by his team, Massa blamed a slow out lap for failure to make it into the Q3 run-off on Saturday, as he had to settle for 13th quickest in the session.

“The first run in Q2 was pretty good" said Massa, "but on the second, I made a mistake going into Turn 9 which kept me out of Q3. I had a bit of traffic on my out lap which meant I didn’t get the tyres up to the right temperature.

We must try and get through these two difficult races, bringing home a few points, working in the meantime on the development of the car. Not having the KERS is definitely a handicap in my case, especially in qualifying. This is another area where we must work, to go back to using it as soon as possible.”

By contrast, Kimi Raikkonen made it into Q3 but was no happier with his performance, as he could not manage better than 8th.

“Of course I’m not happy with eighth place but, given our current potential, we have to settle for this" said the Finn, who has now qualified on row four at every race so far this season.

"We got everything out of the car but we had no more new tyres for Q3 and therefore, it’s already something to have put quite a few of our competitors behind us. The problem is still the same, we are just not quick enough."

Raikkonen also suggested that it may have been a mistake for the team to remove KERS from both cars at the same time, as they had no baseline to compare with this weekend.

"The car’s handling isn’t bad, but as I’ve said before, we are giving away a second to the best" he said. "I hope we get some developments quickly but, in the meantime, we try to do the best with what we’ve got. I hope we have a good race and pick up a few points. I don’t know where we might have been if we had the KERS: at some points it gives you an advantage, but in others it can be a disadvantage. It would have been useful to run it on at least one car to understand the situation better.”

Ferrari team principal Stefano Domenicali gave a frank assessment, saying: “A team like Ferrari cannot claim to be happy with getting one car through to the final part of qualifying, but given our current technical situation, that’s what we could aim for today.

“It was a shame for Felipe who could also have got through to Q3. We knew this would be a difficult weekend, fought out on the back foot and that is proving to be the case. Now we have a race to run, in which there will be many unknown factors to contend with. Reliability will be crucial: we will try and get the most out of the potential at our disposal, to bring home the best possible result.”

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