F1: Post-Race Q&A with Kimi Raikkonen

Formula 1

F1: Post-Race Q&A with Kimi Raikkonen

Finn says he had to push "all the time" in Spain.

Adam Cooper | http://www.speedtv.com | Posted April 27, 2008 Barcelona, Spain

Raikkonen now comands a nine-point cushion in the championship. (LAT Photo)

Kimi Raikkonen took his first pole of the season in Spain, and duly converted it into his second win of the season. It all looked very easy, but the fact that two safety car interventions trimmed his advantage and that teammate Felipe Massa was always in his mirrors ensured that t was by no means a relaxing afternoon for the Finn. He now has a comfortable nine-point margin in the championship, and is the only driver to have scored in all four races, even if he didn’t actually see the flag in Australia. After the race he spoke to the media about his day’s work, and was a bit vague about whether he’d really been pushing or not...

Q: Pole position, fastest lap and it looked like you were in control from minute one of the race. A perfect day at the races for you?

“Yes, but I didn’t get the perfect start. But anyhow it was good enough to stay in front. If we had wanted we could have gone a bit faster but there is no point to push it when you don’t need. I think it was closer than we expected but saying that there were many safety cars so without them maybe it would have been looking a little bit different. It was a good day – everything was brilliant. I am happy that Heikki [Kovalainen] seems to be okay after his accident. I cannot ask anything more as the guys did perfect work apart from the second pitstop when I had two cars in traffic so it took a little bit too long to get out and I had to wait a bit for them to pass me. Apart from that it was okay.”

Q: It appears it was your great pole lap which allowed you to get the lead in the race.

“This circuit is very difficult to overtake. The start is the best place and when you have a lot of things going with the safety car you might be lucky or very unlucky so the best place t try to win is always from the front. It was good yesterday and it really helped us today. We had good speed all weekend.”

Q: What were the track conditions like today?

“Not too bad. I had one incident in corner three when I was coming in for my first pit-stop. There was massive understeer and then the front bites so I almost got sideways. Of course sometimes when you get those unexpected things and it happens in one lap it is more luck than anything else you do not get off. But apart from that the conditions were pretty good today.”

Q: Focusing on Turkey now, and Ferrari are obviously very strong there as well.

“I think so. If you look what happened here last year it was quite similar. Last year was a different race. Our car should be quite strong in Turkey. It is a great circuit and I am looking forward to going there and trying to do the best job we can. As a team we had a great weekend here and we will try to repeat it in Turkey and hopefully we can do it. Whatever it brings we need points and whatever we get is always a bonus.”

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