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Kimi
Raikkonen is convinced his Ferrari team will be able to solve the
reliability problems that hindered their Australian Grand Prix
weekend.
The
world champion was hit by trouble in qualifying, meaning he had to
start from 15th place, and then retired from the race with an
engine problem. Raikkonen still managed to score a point for
eighth place, but that was the only positive the Italian squad
could extract from a disappointing weekend. And although Raikkonen
admits the reliability issues are a concern, he is sure Ferrari
will work hard to solve them.
"The
lack of reliability is a real problem for me now," the Finn
said. "But I know that back in Maranello the team is working
hard to solve our problems. I'm not worried at all about the
performance and the competitiveness of the car. The first race was
like it was, but we know that we have a really good car. We have
to be constantly competitive during the weekend, because when you
have to start from far behind, you get stuck in the traffic, just
the way it happened at Melbourne. We had a good start, but it is
difficult to overtake; you need to take some risks, especially
when you have slower cars in front of you."
Raikkonen,
who last year won the title by one point, welcomed the result
after such a poor weekend, as he reckons that point could be
crucial in the end. There's really not much to say about the first
race weekend of the season: The only positive thing is, that it's
all behind us," said Raikkonen. "We had problems right
from Saturday morning and we could not operate according to our
plans. Obviously we are really disappointed. There's no
point in knowing what we could have done on Friday, Saturday or
Sunday, because in the end we would not have finished the race. We
don't cry over spilled milk. It doesn't help anyway and would not
change the result. Although, with all the problems we had, we
still managed to get one point. So in the end one can always find
a positive aspect in this Australian weekend. We'll see how
important that single point will be by the end of the season."
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