Skip to content

Ferrari’s Stefano Domenicali believes that Kimi Raikkonen’s dominant performance in qualifying played a decisive role in securing the team their third successive victory of the season during Sunday’s Spanish Grand Prix. The Italian squad’s team principal is also keen to stress that, if they are to continue to win, they must work harder to improve their pace on Saturday.

“The most important thing that we saw is the fact that qualifying is crucial,” explained Domenicali to Ferrari’s official website following the Barcelona race. “The one who starts from pole has a big advantage, the advantage to make the pace.”

“Qualifying will be, in my view, the thing that we have to concentrate on a lot because if you look at the pace that we had on Friday, the gap seemed to be significant and then on Saturday it was less, so we really need to focus our work on this part of the racing weekend.”

Raikkonen’s pole position at Barcelona was the Finn’s first of the season and although team mate Felipe Massa also secured the top grid slot in Sepang for the Malaysian race, Ferrari have by no means dominated this season’s qualifying action. McLaren’s Lewis Hamilton and BMW Sauber’s Robert Kubica have both secured P1 for their teams too, in Australia and Bahrain respectively.

Following their Spanish win, however, Ferrari are currently leading the constructors’ standings with 47 points. Second-placed team BMW Sauber are 12 adrift on 35, while McLaren have 34.