Final sector weakness cost Ferrari win

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Ferrari team principal Maurizio Arrivabene blamed the car's poor performance in the final sector as the main reason it failed to win the Spanish Grand Prix.

Kimi Raikkonen was stuck behind Max Verstappen for more than 30 laps but could not find a way past the Red Bull as both made a two-stop strategy work. With Sebastian Vettel finishing third on a three-stop strategy - ahead of Daniel Ricciardo - Arrivabene says the car's weakness in the final part of the lap prevented Raikkonen from overtaking at Turn 1.

“I mean if you reverse the strategy most probably Sebastian was in the same position as Kimi," Arrivabene said. "I don’t think it’s the strategy, the problem is as it happened yesterday we were not good enough in the last part of the track, in the slow corners.

"We saw Kimi, even when the car was sliding a bit was able to catch up immediately. As soon as he was in the last part of the track the Red Bull was [pulling away]. He was able to catch again by the end of the straight.

"It’s not a question of strategy, it’s a question of like yesterday in qualifying, we were very, very slow in the last part of the track.”

And Arrivabene was full of praise for Raikkonen's performance as the Finn moved second in the drivers' championship with his third podium in five races.

“Kimi made a fantastic race in my opinion. It’s a pity that we were not good enough in a certain part of the track - in the last part - to give him the possibility to win the race. If I’m going to say ‘Yeah it’s because it’s Barcelona, you can’t overtake here’, yeah, fine, we all know! But I have to congratulate Kimi because the race was very, very good.”

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Andrew Lewin

Andrew first became a fan of Formula 1 during the time when Michael Schumacher and Damon Hill were stepping into the limelight after the era of Alain Prost, Nigel Mansell and Aryton Senna. He's been addicted ever since, and has been writing about the sport now for nearly a quarter of a century for a number of online news sites. He's also written professionally about GP2 (now Formula 2), GP3, IndyCar, World Rally Championship, MotoGP and NASCAR. In his other professional life, Andrew is a freelance writer, social media consultant, web developer/programmer, and digital specialist in the fields of accessibility, usability, IA, online communities and public sector procurement. He worked for many years in magazine production at Bauer Media, and for over a decade he was part of the digital media team at the UK government's communications department. Born and raised in Essex, Andrew currently lives and works in south-west London.