Our goal is to be ahead of McLaren in the Championship - Raikkonen
No break for the Scuderia Ferrari Marlboro eight days after the summer halt. After the European GP the Team is already getting ready for the next race, which will be held at the historic circuit of Spa-Francorchamps. Kimi Raikkonen is travelling to Belgium in the hope to make it back to the podium, just like at Valencia, in order to keep the team ahead of McLaren in the Championship standings.
Kimi Raikkonen said: "I really enjoy winning, but even a third place can give you some good feelings. We started into the European GP from the sixth position on the starting grid, we had a good start and we managed to gain another place on the podium: we can hardly expect more than this. Our goal is to fight for a position amongst the first three teams and we’ve reached this goal. It was definitely one of my best weekends so far this year, together with the ones in Monaco and Budapest, obviously from a technical point of view.
"This year the car runs very well on the city circuits and on the ones with slower corners. In Valencia I had a very good feeling since Friday’s first practice session, when we drove a lot with lots of petrol on board and we knew that if we could gain a decent result in the qualifying and had a good start we’d have the possibility to fight for a place on the podium – and that is how it went in the end. The F60’s race set up is better than the one for the qualifying; due to that fact we could be faster than Kovalainen’s McLaren during the middle stint: during this part of the race I was constantly informed about my own and Heikki’s lap times, giving 110%. The car was set up well and the speed was high enough to overtake him during the pit stop.
"With the points we gained, we are still ahead of McLaren in the Constructors’ Championsip. This is our goal as a team, but it’s very difficult to reach, considering that we stopped developing this car, concentrating on the one for the upcoming season.
"In a couple of days we’ll be on the track again for the Belgian GP. The main goal is to hold the standard of the last races, which means that we have to try to get on the podium again. I always loved racing at Spa where I’ve won many times since I started my career in the smaller racing series. I really like driving here: 44 laps might be not enough! Last year everything went up in smoke due to the rain at the end of the race and I ran into a wall: I set all on victory and I didn’t have anything to lose. This year the situation is slightly different, also because we don’t have a car that’s able to compete on the highest performance level. But we’ll give it our all - and even more - for a good result.
"You need a very good set up for the car for the fast corners in Spa. Overtaking doesn’t happen very often this year so it’s very important to have a good qualifying. We’ll always have the KERS at the start."
