Even several
days after his great success Kimi Raikkonen can't hide his
satisfaction for the victory at the Belgian GP, his fourth
of this season. "It was wonderful, such a great race! We
didn't have any problems over the whole weekend and I was
able to dominate the race from the start to the end," said
Kimi. "There are certain tracks, where everything runs much
smoother compared to others, the Nürburgring for example,
where always something happens to me. I bet that all drivers
like Spa-Francorchamps. For me this is the most wonderful
track in the world, it's my preferred one, my number one: I
always liked it, since my first race here in the year 2000
with the Formula Renault."
At Monza the situation in the drivers championship changed
in a positive way: "We lost in Monza, but in Belgium we were
able to do what we wanted to do. We even gained more points
at Spa than the others. We expected McLaren to be quite
competitive during the qualifying and Ferrari to have a
better pace during the race. It all came down to the setup:
we decided to use a lower downforce, because we thought we
might loose too much time in the corners in the second
sector.
"It was really tight in the qualifying. I started very well
in my last run and I tried to manage the first sector well
enough. I didn't know the laptime I did before, so I didn't
know that I was on the pole! I felt really well on Saturday
evening. Usually we have good starts so this was not a
critical point. But then you are on the grid and everything
can happen! At the start Felipe came close but I had a
better line so I could stay ahead and come out of the first
corner in front of him, while the McLarens were fighting
against each other.
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"It was wonderful, such a great race! We didn't have
any problems over the whole weekend and I was able
to dominate the race from the start to the end,"
said Kimi Raikkonen. |
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Even several days after his great success Scuderia
Ferrari driver Kimi Raikkonen can't hide his
satisfaction for the victory at the Belgian Grand
Prix on Sunday, his fourth win of this season. |
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Afterwards I saw it on TV and I think that there wasn't
anything wrong. That was just part of a hard race. It will
be like that for the rest of the season. I really had fun in
Belgium. After the start I could build up a gap between my
car and Felipe before the first pitstop. Then I just had to
bring home the car. I lost some time with the cars I had to
lap: sometimes it seems that they don't see the blue flags."
Kimi really enjoyed his third success in a row at this
track: "I felt great when I came back home. I was really
happy. I met some friends for dinner and we went to the
sauna! There won't be any tests for me this week, I try to
cure my neck I hurt in the accident at Monza. I didn't have
any problems with it at Spa, but I better pay some attention
as we have two back-to-back races ahead of us.
"I'll go to Japan early next week. I can't say many things
about the track at Fuji, because I've never seen it. But
there's nothing to worry about. I'll walk around the track
on Thursday and on Friday I'll get to know it during the
free practice. I've heard that this track might be better
for McLaren: we can't change the track, but we can work on
our car. That is why the team is working at Jerez at the
moment. They give 110% so the car is competitive in Japan.
Thirteen points are a lot, but we're catching up..."
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