The Ferrari drivers Sebastian Vettel and Kimi Raikkonen never really managed to get close to their Mercedes rivals during the weekend of the Russian Grand prix.
Vettel passed Lewis Hamilton after they made their respective pitstops but the Englishman quickly took back the position
Hamilton also won the race and Vettel is already 50 points behind him in the general standings. The German finished third in Sochi.
“The feeling with the car was very good and I was able to push, but I just wasn’t as fast as the others. Obviously, it was better than qualifying in terms of pace, but it wasn’t enough to put pressure on our competitors. We tried everything and I am happy that we got a podium finish, but obviously this is not the result we were looking for”, Vettel explained.
“My start was good, but there wasn’t much track space for me and I could go nowhere. After the pitstop, we were able to overcome Lewis, but he could pull ahead more than us and at the end, there was nothing to do. We lost some points during the two last races and it doesn’t help, but we have our plan to follow and hopefully, we can make some progress in the races to come. Maybe the next couple of tracks are better suited for us, we will know when we get there. We need to keep pushing and try; who knows what will happen in the next races.”
Raikkonen was fourth in the Russian Grand prix. He said that his race was not particularly eventful
“I was most of the time on my own. Unfortunately, this is what we kind of expected to happen. The feeling with the car was pretty good; with the first set of tires we suffered a bit with the front left, but then on the Softs the car was very nice to drive. Unfortunately, in qualifying, we were not fast enough and obviously in the race, it was very difficult to overtake”, the Finn added.
A crucial move by @LewisHamilton to get past Sebastian Vettel and allow Mercedes to take control of the #RussianGP ??
Several laps later, he’s 50 points clear of his title rival ?#F1 pic.twitter.com/AKlsCXCACc
— Formula 1 (@F1) September 30, 2018
