Ferrari’s Sebastian Vettel was able to qualify in second place for the 2018 Belgian Grand Prix despite a “weird” end to Q3 in which he “ran out of battery” power.
After Vettel posted the fastest time in a dry Q2, rain arrived while all 10 drivers were on track for their outlaps at the start of the 12-minute Q3 session.
The track dried towards the end of the shootout after all had made the switch to intermediate tyres, meaning that the last cars to cross the line in the session managed to gain an advantage from running in the best conditions.
Despite completing his final lap after polesitter Lewis Hamilton, Vettel ended up 0.726 seconds adrift in second.
“It was a bit strange, not easy to get your eye in and so on,” said Vettel. “It was weird – it’s not rain, it’s not dry, it’s something in between.
“I knew that all of the laps don’t matter but the last one, so I was pushing because you also don’t know whether you will have a red flag or somebody loses it in these conditions, very likely.
“So I stayed on track and everything was fine, but I never closed the lap but the last one.
“Obviously, it was a bit chaotic and not great from a management point of view, I think. We ran out of battery and that was quite costly for nearly the whole lap and yeah, I just think it wasn’t a nice ending to a great qualifying up to that point.”
When the drivers returned to the pits in the opening minutes of the Q3 session as a result of the rain, Ferrari took notably longer than their rivals to return Vettel and team-mate Kimi Raikkonen to the track.
“I think we had a wobble, obviously, I guess everybody had in these conditions, swapping tyres,” Vettel added.
“I think there was a bit of miscommunication, I was stuck in the pitlane for a while.
“At the end that didn’t matter but it was just not as calm as I think it could have been.
Raikkonen’s qualifying session was hampered by not having enough time to refuel the car and complete a final run in the latter stages. He ended up sixth.
Comments.
Loading comments…