F1: Raikkonen Back On Top With Lotus

Formula 1

F1: Raikkonen Back On Top With Lotus

Sunday's victory was the first for Kimi Raikkonen since 2009...

Adam Cooper | http://www.speedtv.com | Posted November 04, 2012 Abu Dhabi (ARE)

The first win of Kimi Raikkonen’s comeback season with Lotus came on the third anniversary of the end of the first part of his F1 career in his final race for Ferrari in 2009.

Raikkonen jumped ahead of Pastor Maldonado and Mark Webber at the start of the Abu Dhabi GP, and gained the lead when Lewis Hamilton stopped on lap 20. The Finn holds a solid third place in the World Championship with two races to go.

“I’m very happy for the team,” said Raikkonen. “We have had hard times lately, and hopefully it gives some belief for the people.

“For everybody, hopefully it gives a bit more support and hope that things will turn around and be even better than it’s been this year. So, great thing for the team itself, for the guys and, I mean of course I’m happy myself, but if I win it’s great. If I don’t, I will try again, and it’s not the end of the life.

“We’ve been close few times but now I said that even the last race I think we had the speed to even win the race, but if you don’t start in the front, we see what can happen.

“We knew the start would be a really big key, and I got a really good start so I think with the McLaren we didn’t have the speed, at least in the beginning of the race – but then we have to finish the race to win. I mean, after that, we were pretty good. Just the safety cars made us a little bit trickier today.”

Raikkonen said the good start was crucial to his race.

“I think we've had some very good starts before, but compared to the others, today was a pretty normal start on our scale,” the 2007 champion said. “I managed to pass Mark and Maldonado before I changed into second gear.

“I'd had a very good start on the warm-up lap so I knew this was going to be good. That was our aim: to try to make a good start, and we managed to do it, so it was key for our win today.”

Regarding recent exhaust updates, he said: “It brings some pace, helps our straight line speed. So in average we gain some advantage but it’s exactly the same car we have in Korea. So we see how much even this year in all the races, some circuits suits better for one team and the next one is not so good for you.

“We had good speed last race, as I’ve already said. We made some mistakes in qualifying and paid the price in the race. So now we put all together like we should have done quite a few times this year but, for one reason or another, we haven’t. But at least we’ve got one win, so we’ll keep trying to push still and see what we can do in the next race.”

Adam Cooper notched up his 27th season as a racing journalist in 2011. He has written about F1 for SPEED.com since 2005. Follow him on Twitter.