15.05.2008 KIMI RAIKKONEN: "THE TEAM IS VERY MOTIVATED"

KIMI RAIKKONEN - 2008 TURKISH GRAND PRIX

"I came to Istanbul leading by nine points and now I'm seven ahead, not much changed," says Kimi Raikkonen (above, on his way to third place in Turkey last Sunday), "I had a really difficult weekend, it started with a problem and went on with another, in the end I did not finish too badly."

"I like to play golf and after the Turkish GP I had the same feeling like having a bogey. I came to Istanbul leading by nine points and now I'm seven ahead. Not much changed," says Kimi Raikkonen. "I had a really difficult weekend. It started with a problem and went on with another. Fortunately in the end I did not finish too badly. I wanted to fight for a win, but that's racing. Sometimes it just goes wrong since the very beginning of the weekend. So you concentrate to save as much as you can, just like I did in Turkey. I can't be too disappointed about the third spot, considering what happened at the start.

"I'm in Switzerland now, where I was able to watch the ice hockey match Finland-USA in Canada. After that my result felt slightly better.

"The weekend at Istanbul started with a problem on Friday, when something was wrong with the gear shifting in the first session of the Free Practice. So I had to stop and wait until the afternoon to carry on the work. There was some rain during lunchtime, so we were not able to get a proper picture of our car's set up and the tyres. On Saturday morning it was not much better and we had to go into the Qualifying without the best possible set up.I had a lot of fuel on board so the car was pretty good, but I made a mistake on my lap, which cost me too much. The fourth spot on the grid really hurt. Even my start wasn't perfect. I was almost side by side with Heikki and I thought I might have passed him, but then he slowed down to take the first corner and there was no more space for me. I slowed down as much as possible, but I touched his rear tyre with my front wing. Meanwhile cars passed on the outside and in the end I was sixth by the end of the first lap.The car was not balanced perfectly, but there was no time to change the wing. It would have cost more time compared to the time I lost using the one I had.

"Afterwards it's always easy to say what we could have done. But I never do that and this case is closed.So far the only the weekend at Barcelona was without any problems. I hope that the next one will be at Monte Carlo. I think that we have a very competitive car. We'll have two days of tests in France to test the solutions for the Monaco GP. The Team is very motivated to try to be strong on a track, where we were not competitive last year."
 

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