United States Grand Prix - “The atmosphere hasn’t changed”

The last few races have proved to be disappointing for Scuderia Ferrari, but the results haven’t dented the team’s morale and both Seb and Kimi fully believe in the potential that lies in the package for the last four rounds of the 2017 season, starting with the US GP in the capital city of Texas. So they’d rather look ahead to the new challenges than back to the missed opportunities.

“I still think we have a chance,” says Seb “and we only have to stay focused on our job. We have a great car and a good package, which could have won the last two races; we didn’t, but this doesn’t mean we don’t have a chance to win the last races. So, we need to look at what’s next and focus on the next events. Overall, I think it’s been a very good season for us so far. Some people will base their judgement on the last couple of races, which were not so good, but I think we are the team that improved the most this year. Probably nobody expected us to be as strong as we have been. So, I think there are many positive aspects. We still have races ahead of us and a strong car and we keep improving. We are going in the right direction and we have clever people on board. So I don’t look at what is already behind us, and I stay focused on what’s ahead of us. As for this weekend, I honestly don’t know what to expect here, but the track is ‘mixed’ and the speed is there, so I am optimistic.”

“From tomorrow on we’ll start to understand our level of competitiveness,” adds Kimi. “I don’t see any reason why we shouldn’t be strong here, but we must wait and see. We need to put things together better in the early part of the weekend and make sure that we can be up there all the time. In the last races we had some difficulties, but let’s not forget that in every one of them we’ve had a Ferrari car on the first row of the grid in qualifying. So, the atmosphere and the approach in the team haven’t changed and I can’t find a reason why they should have. Obviously we have to understand and fix the issues; we need to minimize them and finish the races first of all, otherwise you pay a high price. But this all is part of racing, it’s not the first time it happens and it won’t be the last. We keep on working together as a team, even more closely now.”