After taking the crown in 2007 and his teammate missing out by one point in 2008, Kimi Raikkonen was well aware that his Ferrari team were not in a position to fight for championship honours this season. After congratulating the new champion, Jenson Button, who took the crown at last weekend’s Brazilian Grand Prix, the same venue where Kimi wrapped his up two years ago, the Finn spoke about his season and the recent race at Interlagos....

“This year we didn’t have the possibility to fight for the World Title. We didn’t have the right performance to fight for the win in every race. As we expected we had a difficult weekend also in Brazil, but without what happened on the first lap I would have been able to gain a place on the podium. We had some problem with graining in Friday’s free practice sessions, but we managed to improve the car’s set up, so that my lap times were competitive in the race.”

“When there’s rain, the qualifying turns into a lottery. We were very fast with the super wets over the weekend and I was always amongst the top three. With the intermediates I lost some grip and it became more difficult for me. I still managed to gain the fifth position on the starting grid, which was a good position for the race. I had a great start, benefitting also from the fact that I had soft tyres, while the others around me were on the hard compound.

“I had a good exit in corner 3 and I tried to attack Webber, benefitting from the KERS: he suddenly changed his racing line and before I could even think I hit the grass with two wheels and damaged the front wing. In this moment my hopes for a place amongst the top three ended up in smoke. I came back to the box and we changed the strategy to a race with just one stop. While I was in the pitlane I saw Heikki’s car in front of me with the hose stuck to his car, fuel came out and hit me even in the eyes. I was in a ball of fire for a second: I almost stopped to get out of the car and when it was over my eyes still hurt.”

“Unfortunately in the first part of the race I was stuck for a long time behind Grosjean: when he stopped I had a free track. All in all the sixth place is a good result, considering what had happened. Although I don’t like the fact that we lost points to McLaren in a race where they started behind us. Now we’re one point behind in the standings: everything can happen in Abu Dhabi and we’ll give it everything to regain the third place.”