We heard from some of the Ferrari drivers at the end of a race made difficult by the heat and the large number of cars on the track, which compelled competitors to be even more cautious than usual.
Alessio Rovera, Formula Racing: “At the beginning of my stint I got caught up in traffic a bit, but I soon found my pace, and it went well. I'm happy with this debut and the end result. Tomorrow, one step at a time, we can still improve on things”.
Nicklas Nielsen, Formula Racing: “In the first stint I struggled with two Aston Martins a lap down, which didn't make it easy to lap. My pace was good compared to the other Ferraris in the race while the Porsches were uncatchable. The car and team performed excellently, and I'm happy with my second stint because we made up some positions. Fifth-sixth place was the best result we could have hoped for today, so we can be moderately satisfied. Let's hope we do better tomorrow”.
Giancarlo Fisichella, AF Corse: “It was a difficult race, mainly because of the Balance of Performance, which penalised us compared to everyone else, costing at least half a second on the Porsches. I had an excellent start, and I managed to get into fourth position despite starting eleventh. The race was going pretty well, but unfortunately the Full Course Yellow came out at the wrong time when Flohr had not yet completed his minimum driving time. That's why we were forced to make a green flag stop, while everyone else stopped during the yellow phase. We could have been fighting for sixth-seventh. We hope to do better tomorrow and in a completely different BoP at least in Abu Dhabi”
Davide Rigon, Rinaldi Racing: "David's start was very good and we maximised the fact that he was a Silver against other Bronze drivers to bring us back to the top of the classification. Unfortunately in a contact he damaged a mirror and we had to replace it. That thwarted our strategy and compromised our race because we made one stop and couldn't take advantage of Full Course Yellow because it was too short. Rino did a good job before leaving me the car for the final two hours. Unfortunately, it wasn't possible to gain much, both because the balance was not optimal and because the Balance of Performance was very unfavourable. Anyway, the team did a great job and we aim to do better tomorrow".
Manuel Lauck, Rinaldi Racing: “It was a quite exciting race for me. For sure with the bad luck of yesterday that we got deleted all the lap times I had to start from last position. I had quite fun during the first laps going from the last to the tenth position in two laps. At this time the balance of the car was good and finally we won the Am class that makes us quite happy, so we hope that we stay like that and we continue tomorrow”.
Patrick Kujala, Rinaldi Racing: “First of all thanks to Rinaldi for the great car and for the great job from everyone. It’s always nice to start the season with a win in our category. Overall we had a good first race to start the year and I’m very happy”.