Uneventful race for Raikkonen
Team McLaren Mercedes driver Kimi Raikkonen finished fifth in today's 66-laps Spanish Grand Prix. Juan Pablo Montoya retired from the race on lap 18 after spinning at turn two and getting stuck on the kerb. Kimi was on a two-stop- strategy and made his pit stops on laps 22 (7.9 seconds) and 46 (7.6 seconds).
Kimi remains third in the Drivers' ranking with 27 points and Juan Pablo is seventh with 15 points. Team McLaren Mercedes holds third place in the Constructors' Championship with 42 points. The team will test this coming week at the Paul Ricard track in France with all four drivers sharing the work load.
Kimi Raikkonen "A rather uneventful race for me. I made a good start where I managed to get up from ninth to fifth and that was all the progress I was able to make. It was simply not possible to keep up with the Renaults and the Ferraris this weekend and we will spend the time before the Monaco Grand Prix looking at ways to improve."
Juan Pablo Montoya "I made a dreadful start off the line and lost three or four places but managed to gain some ground again in the first corner to end up 11th. Then I don't know quite what happened but I lost the car and got stuck on the kerb and that was it. The strategy we were running meant that I carried a lot of fuel and I think with the ways things were looking we could have scored some points today. Overall a difficult weekend for us but we will continue testing this week and then look forward to the Monaco Grand Prix.".
Ron Dennis "A difficult weekend for us where despite a good drive by Kimi, we were only able to achieve fifth place. The whole team is working hard to improve the package to increase our performance in the coming races."
Norbert Haug "To be the third team behind Renault and Ferrari again and the gap to the leaders is a disappointment that we have to change. Kimi made a perfect start to improve from ninth to fifth but the overall pace of his car was not fast enough and he delivered what was possible today. Juan Pablo was on a one stop strategy but he spun out of a possible points result the cause of which we will investigate. Our attention is now on improving our technical package during the next races."
