Weather: FP3: sunny, some clouds 21.4-21.9°C air, 25.9-26.8°C track; Q: sunny, some clouds, 22.1°C air, 31.3-30.3°C track
Frédéric Vasseur, Team Principal Alfa Romeo Racing and CEO Sauber Motorsport AG:
"It's always a shame when you lose a car in Q1. It was a small mistake by Kimi, but that was enough to miss the cut, which shows how close the spread is in the midfield. In the end, we have to take the positives from the session: we were just 0.2s off P7 at the end of Q2, so we can expect a good battle in tomorrow's race. Our long run pace looked ok in practice: if we keep our noses clean in the opening laps, we can be in the fight for points."
Kimi Räikkönen (car number 7):
Alfa Romeo Racing C38 (Chassis 06/Ferrari)
3rd practice: 17th / 1:35.714 (19 laps) / Q: 16th / 1:34.840 (8 laps)
"It's been a difficult weekend so far but I felt a lot better in qualifying. We made some big changes for this afternoon and improved the car quite a bit. I was improving my time, but unfortunately I made a small mistake, went wide in turn ten and lost all the speed on the back straight. That was it - I would have easily been in Q2 without that."
Antonio Giovinazzi (car number 99):
Alfa Romeo Racing C38 (Chassis 04/Ferrari)
3rd practice: 14th / 1:34.766 (15 laps) / Q: 13th / 1:34.037 (14 laps)
"I tried my best today but in the end we fell just a bit short of the top ten. Starting from P12 tomorrow [because of Gasly's penalty] with the possibility to choose the tyres can be a small advantage. It's hard to tell where we stand when it comes to race pace, but I hope we can be competitive tomorrow. Of course we wanted more coming into the session, but if we have a good start and a good strategy we can be in the fight for points. Nobody can predict what weather we'll have tomorrow and if it starts to rain anything can happen. Having both cars in the top ten is the objective but the key is to continue improving."
Media information:
All press content will be made available at the following link throughout the weekend in Sochi: bit.ly/2lmiSxP
Media contact Alfa Romeo:
Davide D'Amico
davide.damico1@fcagroup.com
+39 3357715011
