|
"Now we are looking ahead to the next race
and react without panic," said Scuderia
Ferrari's Kimi Raikkonen as he reflects on
the British Grand Prix, "We know that we
have a winning car: we just need a weekend
without big problems." |
|
|
|
"We didn't
win the British GP, but at least as far as I'm
concerned, I didn't loose too much ground. It was a very
difficult race," said Kimi Raikkonen as he reflects on
last weekend's British Grand Prix at Silverstone. "We
didn't expect the rain to become more intense
immediately after our pit stop: but that's what happened
and we found ourselves in one of the worst possible
situation for nine endless laps. I think I've never
driven a Formula One race under such difficult
conditions. It was almost impossible to stay on the
track with used tyres and so much water. Although going
slow I was almost everywhere on aquaplaning! I could
just hope not to bump into someone or something. But as
usual one should never gives up and that's what me and
the Team did.
"Once we had
changed the tyres the situation was under control and I
could make up ground. It was a great feeling to get back and
into the points so fast. Then there was the battle with
Alonso for fourth position. It was a very important point to
compete for, but I didn't want to risk too much. In the end
I managed to overtake him and get that place.
"Considering everything that happened, it could have gone
worse. We had the pace to win and there's no doubt about it,
but we took a wrong decision. We spoke about it via radio
with the pitwall and we thought that, based on the forecast,
the rain should not have lasted much longer than a couple of
minutes and that's why we decided to keep the same set of
tyres. But the forecast was wrong and I had to slow down a
lot: This shower seemed to last forever.
"Having said that, the whole weekend was not very easy. We
came to Silverstone with a good feeling after the tests, but
for some reason or the other, the car didn't go as well on
Friday. It went better on Saturday, but the wind made
everything much more difficult during Q3: the third spot on
the grid was not too bad.
"I had a good start and tried to find a gap to overtake
Heikki and Webber. But suddenly Mark came to the left and I
had to slow down, because I had nowhere to go. Hamilton had
a good start and I lost a position to him. When we came
close to the pit stop I had the highest pace over the
weekend and it seemed as if everything went into the right
direction. Unfortunately the black clouds came back and
everything changed again. The five points and the fact that
I'm leading the standings with Felipe and Lewis give me
satisfaction nevertheless. If I'm in such a position after
four races, where everything happened, my confidence can
only be strengthened.
"Now we are looking ahead to the next race and react without
panic. We know that we have a winning car: we just need a
weekend without big problems. As of today we are at
Hockenheim for two days of testing, with Felipe, who'll be
on the track on Thursday. It's my first race with Ferrari on
this track, so it's a new experience for me. I'd say that
we'll be competitive, because the F2008 has demonstrated to
be competitive wherever we are: so we can fight back!"
|