Alonso: “Today's qualifying was chaotic”

Qualifying with two faces for Scuderia Ferrari for the Hungarian Grand Prix. Fernando Alonso tomorrow at 14pm will start from fifth on the grid while Kimi Raikkonen only got the 17th time due to a strategic choice that he didn't pay for.

Q1, which began under a leaden sky, with a 30% risk of rain, immediately saw two twists: Pastor Maldonado's Lotus parked on the side of the track, while Lewis Hamilton's Mercedes caught fire, forcing the Englishman to abandon it without having even scored a time.

By mid-session Fernando was comfortably qualified for Q2 while Kimi was 14th. At that point, however, the team decided to keep the Finn in the garage, confident that the Caterhams and Marussias would not be able to do better than the Ferrari driver's 1'26"792 and that therefore, in the worst case scenario, Kimi would remain 16th. °. Jules Bianchi, however, was the protagonist of an excellent lap which, by a handful of hundredths, took Raikkonen out of the group of drivers qualified for Q2. Now the Finn, with nothing to lose, will be forced into an attacking race.

Alonso, after having calmly qualified for Q3, was able to set the fifth fastest time in 1'23”909 on a track made treacherous by some drops of rain. In front of him were Nico Rosberg (Mercedes, 1'22"715), at the tenth pole of his career, Sebastian Vettel (Red Bull), Valtteri Bottas (Williams) and Daniel Ricciardo (Red Bull).

Fernando Alonso: “After chaotic qualifying like today, you always think that you could have done more, but if you then analyze what happened, finishing fifth was a good result, because we managed to take advantage of all the opportunities that presented themselves. Getting a start on the clean side is very important, it gives you the chance to recover positions at the start and race with the leading group. The rain forecast for tomorrow will certainly affect the strategies: if until today in the dry conditions and with high temperatures there was talk of two or three stops, for tomorrow everything will be seen. Both Kimi and I need to earn points for the team because we want to recover the third place in the Constructors' championship lost last weekend and, even starting from the back, good strategic choices could help to achieve the objective."