Thanks to a third place in the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix, Sebastian Vettel made sure of finishing second in the 2017 World Championship, while Kimi Raikkonen’s fourth place finish saw him jump ahead of Daniel Ricciardo to take fourth spot in the classification. Ferrari has racked up its biggest points score in one season, with 522 to its name.
“Thanks to you all, really,” was Seb’s radio message at the end of the race.
Sebastian Vettel:
“I was pretty lonely for most of the race, trying to save a bit of fuel in the first part of the final stint. It was not very exciting, but that’s how it goes sometimes! The results have been worse than they could have been, but in the end, we weren’t strong enough. However, it’s against the spirit of Ferrari to give up. I am sure we have a lot of things to improve and the people are very motivated. So, I am looking forward to next season.”
“We had our chances and we took them, but we also made little mistakes here and there and I am sure they won’t happen anymore. I think we didn’t lose the Championship in any particular race. You just race and collect all the points, and in our case, we didn’t have enough. I promise to push next year and do my best together with the whole team, and then we’ll see. This year we improved massively on the car. The chassis has been really strong since the first day. We made some major steps on the engine, but we still need to find some more power compared to our competitors. However, the most important thing is to focus on where we want to be as a team.”
Kimi Raikkonen:
“My car felt pretty good most of the time, but to be honest, my race was boring. I was fuel saving for most of the time. In my view, this has nothing to do with racing, but rules are rules. There’s nothing you can do, you keep lifting halfway through the straights, 200 meters before the braking point and the guy behind has to do the same. It’s painful not able to push your car when you have the potential to do it. It looks close, but it’s not a fight.”
“I held [Max] Verstappen behind me and at the same time, I was saving enough fuel to be legal. In some race tracks, you have to do it more than in others and it’s not very exciting. Overall this year we would have liked to do a lot better, as we had a pretty strong package; we just need to fix and minimize all the issues. Next year, it will be a different story with a different car, and we’ll start from zero. We want to improve in all areas and go faster.”
#Seb5 and #Kimi7 comment the last race #AbuDhabiGP #ForzaFerrari pic.twitter.com/FqbD1kcovz
— Scuderia Ferrari (@ScuderiaFerrari) November 26, 2017
