It was definitely a very difficult qualifying for the Scuderia Ferrari Marlboro team at the all new Yas marina circuit this evening when only one of its drivers, Kimi Raikkonen, made it through to the second session in qualifying and he then just missed out on the cut for the final shoot-out by a few hundredths. The final result sees Kimi lined up in eleventh place on the grid while their rivals for third in the championship will start from pole position.

“Today we got the most out of the car, but we did not have the necessary performance to make it into Q3,” Kimi said of his final qualifying session with the team. “Already yesterday, we realized that it would be tough, so this result is definitely not a surprise. Tomorrow, we will try to do our best, but it’s certainly not going to be an easy race, even though we should definitely be more competitive in the race than in qualifying. What I can say is that eleventh place is better than tenth, given that I will start from the clean side of the track and can choose the ideal fuel load. It will be hard to get third in the Constructors’, because the McLaren is very competitive. We will have to try and get some points and hope for a bit of luck.”

Meanwhile, in his last race for the Maranello based squad, Giancarlo Fisichella failed to make it off the last row of the grid, again, and will start from the lowest possible point, twentieth and last.

“We knew it would be tough, but I don’t think we could have expected much more,” he said. “In the first and second sectors I was reasonably competitive, but in the final one I had a lot of understeer. Tomorrow will be hard, but I know I can manage a strong pace: we will do our best to get a good result. I am disappointed not to have been able to do better in these races with Ferrari as it would be nice to reward the team that has had trust in me, by bringing them some points. It has not been easy adapting my driving style to a car that is particularly difficult to drive and at a time when, more and more, it felt the effects of the ending of its development programme.”

“We knew it would be a very difficult session for us and so it turned out to be,” added Stefano Domenicali. “Actually, we could not have expected much more, as we are well aware of our situation and we just have to try and make the best of what we have got. Once again, Kimi did a good job, giving his best on every occasion. It would be nice to end such a difficult year in a good way, which would mean securing our goal of third place in the Constructors’ classification, but tomorrow, we will be facing a steep climb all through the race. The situation is further complicated by the grid positions of our main opponents. All the same, the race still has to be run and in this sport, we have seen so often that nothing can be taken for granted. What we can be sure of is that we will give it our all.”