Even though the two Ferrari cars only managed third and fourth in the 2018 Formula 1 Hungarian Grand Prix qualifying, Kimi Raikkonen said he was still surprised how good the car felt in the wet conditions.
The Ferrari cars had supreme pace at Hungaroring in the dry running on Friday, but the wet weather during the qualifying session meant they could only manage a second row finish when their rivals Mercedes locked out the front row.
It is no surprise that the Mercedes car has a slight edge over Ferrari in the slippery conditions, but Raikkonen was still able to put up a sound challenge to his German rivals which surprised the Finn very much.
“I think it was quite tricky,” he started. “We did most of the time the right calls. In Q2, I wanted to go with the dry tyres to see if we had time to do one lap. Obviously it wasn’t the case, so it was a bit tricky the one lap with the inters.
“It was a bit late when it started to rain. But it was enough to get through, that’s the main thing. It’s disappointing not to be the first [after Q3]. I think we had the speed today. I was pleasantly surprised how nice the car was in the wet, because that definitely hasn’t been our strongest point.
“That was great and I was able to drive it at least in the wet. It’s nice that we can actually drive like it should be in the wet and it’s been a while since we’ve really been comfortable in these kind of conditions.
“Obviously, it depends on the day and place and how much it rains but today the car was as it should be and that you can actually push and obviously we had the speed now. I was a bit unlucky with the traffic once we changed to new tyres.
“There was more grip and for sure a lot more time, but we got behind Haas and I couldn’t really slow down a lot more or else we wouldn’t have time to start and then the spray there was nothing I could have done.
“It’s shame because today for sure there was the speed. But tomorrow is another day.” Raikkonen had provisional pole with a 1m36.186s but he couldn’t improve on his second try whereas both pole-sitter Lewis Hamilton and Valtteri Bottas did.
The Finn’s teammate Sebastian Vettel also improved to a 1m36.210s, but the German just lacked enough legs to even beat Raikkonen. He conceded that the car did not have outright pace to Mercedes in the wet but he felt it isn’t awfully bad with the second row start.