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Kimi Raikkonen
finally earned Ferrari its first points of
the 2009 Formula 1 season with a sixth place
finish in the Bahrain Grand Prix a
week-and-a-half ago. |
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"It’s a bit more than a year ago that I won
my last Formula One race," says Kimi Raikkonen as he
looks forward to this weekend's Spanish Grand Prix. "At Barcelona in 2008 I had my
best weekend with Ferrari: pole position, victory and
fastest race lap. Since then I came very close several
times – I’m thinking of Magny-Cours, Montreal and Spa –
but for one reason or the other I could never make it.
Having said that, a driver never looses the lust for
winning and I want to have that feeling again as soon as
possible.
"After four races outside Europe it’s always
very nice to come back to the Old World," continues the
former F1 World Champion. "Furthermore I
really like the Circuit de Catalunya a lot, also because I
could win here already twice in my career.
"I really liked hearing from the
team that
the new aerodynamic package’s first signs are positive. It
will be really interesting taking the car out during
Friday’s free practice sessions. We drove on this track back
in March this year, but it’s always really difficult to
understand from the tests, who’s really strong in the field.
Furthermore many cars have changed quite a lot since then.
With the new aerodynamic package we’ll have more downforce
compared to the first four races, but also almost all of the
others will show up with some updates. We’ll see who has
done better work.
"Aerodynamic efficiency is crucial at the
Circuit de Catalunya for a good lap time. It’s a very
demanding track from a technical point of view and you need
a good car to be competitive. A good qualifying will be
important to avoid getting stuck in the field with all the
risks coming with a situation like this at the start; we
paid our price for that at Bahrain. Overtaking is never easy
at Barcelona, but now we’ll see if the KERS can help to make
it easier. On such a track it might make the difference,
especially at the start.
"Until now we gained only three points. The
sixth place at Bahrain was a decent result, but now we have
to reach much higher. I spent some days at home in
Switzerland. I trained and followed the ice hockey world
championships, which are held in Switzerland this year.
Obviously I’m shouting for Finland. Monday night we played
very well and we won against Canada: this match showed that
you should never give up and fight right until the end. This
is what we’ll do at Ferrari," concluded the Finn.
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