Kimi Raikkonen made the top three of qualifying for just the fourth time in 2015, but even before Vettel’s early exit, the Finn looked to have the upper hand throughout the weekend.
“The car has been handling pretty well all weekend. The laps haven’t been ideal many times. Even the first run, it was OK the lap, but nothing like… I knew there was quite a lot of room to improve so I just tried to make one a bit better lap and it was enough. Obviously still a bit of a way off from what these guys (Mercedes) can do but we did our best today,” Raikkonen said in the press conference.
“In qualifying the Supersofts were working well and obviously yesterday and this morning wasn’t ideal. Couldn’t get the lap with those. Couldn’t get the lap with those but again in qualifying they were fine.”
The Yas Marina’s evening-to-night transition saw the track temperature fall from 30 to 28 degrees through qualifying. Temperature being a factor to influence tyre strategy come the race.
“Obviously conditions changed from daytime to this evening but no, both tyres seem to be working pretty well for me and we’ll see what we’re going to do tomorrow – which one we’re going to run and how it’s going to plan out in the first few laps.”
