Formula One news

McLaren gets tyre choice wrong

McLaren Mercedes drivers Kimi Raikkonen and Pedro de la Rosa will line up 11th and 13th on the grid for tomorrow's Japanese Grand Prix. Kimi's time of 1:30.827 in the second qualifying session just missed the top ten, whilst Pedro's lap of 1:31.254 was also not quick enough to get into the final shootout. 

"Not particularly a great qualifying for anyone in the team today and not where we expected to be," said Raikkonen. "I do not really understand what the problem was as the car didn't feel too bad, we were just too slow. We will now have to look at the strategies available to us so that we can improve in the race tomorrow. It is not ideal to be starting where we are, but it is not impossible to still get a decent result."

De la Rosa commented, "The balance of the car was OK, but we just didn't have enough grip over one lap with the Michelin tyres that we selected. However we can work on our strategy now and try to make the best out of this situation. Hopefully the tyres that worked well in qualifying might not be as strong in the race."

Team boss Ron Dennis added, "Very much a qualifying that was dominated by tyres. Clearly our choice, which we thought was right after this morning's session, was in fact wrong. This was compounded by a strong performance from Michelin's competition. The race will be very much influenced by the weather and maybe with an optimal fuel load and better race performance from our tyre selection we can still aim for a good result."

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