It will be very close this weekend - Raikkonen
Although most of the media attention in the Monza Park centred on Scuderia Ferrari Marlboro’s newest driver, Giancarlo Fisichella, his team-mate Kimi Raikkonen still drew a big crowd of journalists in the Ferrari Media Motorhome this afternoon.
Even though the Finn always gives the same logical answer at every Thursday meeting, the press still insist on asking him how the weekend will go. “We don’t know until Friday as usual, what we can do,” he repeated. “This is the first time we tackle a real low downforce circuit. The kerbs are new here and I think that can only be a good thing for us. There are a lot of fans for us here, which makes it a nice race for the whole team and I hope we can give them a good result, hopefully a podium. For Ferrari it is a home grand prix, which makes it special, but from my own point of view, I tackle it just like any other race. There are plenty of Ferrari red shirts and caps and I do notice all that when I’m out on track.”
Having won the last race in Belgium, the home crowd are naturally hoping for more of the same. “We have wanted to win since the start of the year, but our car was not on the pace and I set myself the target of winning at least one race,” said Raikkonen. “We’re still not where we want to be in terms of overall performance and we are never going to reach that point this year as we are no longer developing new parts for the car. We will still be trying to win more races, but it won’t be easy, as other teams are still continuing improving this year’s car. Even though we have KERS and it should be very useful here, we have seen there are other cars that have been very quick without it at other races this year. It will be very close this weekend.”
It is fair to say that Kimi has never gone in for the “emotional” side of the sport, so he had little to say on the subject of having Fisichella sharing the garage with him. “I know him as well as I know any other driver: he is a nice guy and we have a good relationship, even if it is the same as with any team-mate, which means we work together for the good of the team, but outside the track, I don’t know what he does and he doesn’t know what I do in my time. I’m sure we can produce some good results working together for the team. Of the drivers available, he has the best chance to do a good job because he has so much experience.”
