Ferrari driver Kimi Raikkonen was delayed reaching the Hungaroring this afternoon where he was scheduled to take part in the official FIA press conference. The Finn eventually arrived three quarters of the way through, explaining that he was held up at the airport in Switzerland for a few hours eventually going on to answer a barrage of questions from the awaiting media….
In testing, do you think you’ve found the reasons for your lack of performance in the last couple of races? It’s difficult to say, really. In Germany we definitely didn’t have the speed that we were hoping for but then there were many other people who didn’t either. We will see this weekend. You can always think that from the testing that we found something… or at least we should understand better what our position is but racing is a different place and hopefully we will do better here.
What about your own motivation? Does that remain the same? Yeah, it hasn’t disappeared anywhere but of course it’s not nice when it’s not going so well but it’s not the first time. We just keep pushing and at some point it starts going better again.
People are talking about you retiring, not necessarily at the end of this year but at the end of next year. Are there any thoughts on that? I never said anything like that. I only said that I have a contract until the end of next year and then somebody made up that I will stop at the end of this year or the end of next year, but I never said that.
Are you still enjoying Formula One? Yeah, but like I said, there are a lot of other things in life but I’m enjoying this. I have a great time, I have a great time with them. Of course it would be better if we could do a little bit better right now but that’s racing and for sure we will get where we want.
Have you tested the sharkfin engine cover? And how is it with your driving style and the performance of the car? I didn’t test it. I think we will probably run it tomorrow and see how it is but I think Felipe tried it on the last day of the test. We will see how it works tomorrow.
Kimi, can you describe how much of the time at Jerez you could use for finding the reasons for the lack of performance in the last races? The whole test, that’s why we went there. We tried to more or less understand if we have done something wrong, taken a wrong direction. We tried many, many things and we at least know where we had a problem, or if we had a problem or not. I think we have a clearer picture than before.
Kimi, when you set up a car for a race, how much do you look at Felipe Massa’s settings or do you pretty much go 100 percent your own way? Of course you always look at your teammate, and then in the end you need to do what you think is the best way and what is best for you. Sometimes they can be very close, sometimes they are more far away from each other and I would say that this year they would probably be closer than they were last year but it really depends from race to race and it keeps changing.
Kimi, it wasn’t really hot in Hockenheim but it’s quite hot here. Do you think it will help Ferrari to use its tyres more efficiently? Usually when it’s been hot it’s been good for us but the last few races have been quite up and down for us. Hopefully it helps us but then I might be wrong. We need to wait until tomorrow.
Kimi, do the last two results make Lewis the championship favourite now? For sure they’ve been very fast in the last races and we haven’t really been exactly doing so well. There are many races to go, but he has a little gap over us, so it’s not easy to catch up, especially if we don’t start winning, it will be pretty difficult. Hopefully we can catch up.
;)
