© FIA

Kimi Räikkönen was guest of the FIA press conference after his success at the Spanish Grand Prix in Barcelona.

Question: Kimi, pole position, fastest lap and it looked like you were in control from minute one of the race. A perfect day at the races for you?

Kimi: Yes, but I didn’t get the perfect start. But anyhow it was good enough to stay in front. If we had wanted we could have gone a bit faster but there is no point to push it when you don’t need to. I think it was closer than we expected but saying that there were many safety cars, so without them maybe it would have been looking a little bit different. It was a good day – everything was brilliant. I am happy that Heikki (Kovalainen) seems to be okay after his accident. I cannot ask anything more as the guys did perfect work apart from the second pit stop when I had two cars in traffic, so it took a little bit too long to get out and I had to wait a bit for them to pass me. Apart from that it was okay.

Question: It appears it was your great pole lap which allowed you to get the lead in the race.

Kimi: This circuit is very difficult to overtake. The start is the best place and when you have a lot of things going with the safety car you might be lucky or very unlucky, so the best place to try to win is always from the front. It was good yesterday and it really helped us today. We had good speed all weekend.

Question: What were the track conditions like today?

Kimi: Not too bad. I had one incident in corner three when I was coming in for my first pit stop. There was massive understeer and then the front bites, so I always got sideways. Of course sometimes when you get those unexpected things and it happens in one lap it is more luck than anything else you do not get off. But apart from that the conditions were pretty good today.

Question: Kimi, focussing on Turkey now and Ferrari are obviously very strong there as well.

Kimi: I think so. If you look what happened here last year it was quite similar. Last year was a different race. Our car should be quite strong in Turkey. It is a great circuit and I am looking forward to going there and trying to do the best job we can.  As a team we had a great weekend here and we will try to repeat it in Turkey and hopefully we can do it. Whatever it brings we need points and whatever we get is always a bonus.

Question: Kimi, it looked like a pretty perfect day, was the car perfect?

Kimi: Yeah, it was pretty good. We could still improve it. We always try to improve it but it was very nice, very good balance all the time, so it wasn’t too bad.

Question: It looked as if you lost a little bit of time on the harder tyres in comparison to the McLaren. Both of you were lapping at the same pace, roughly speaking, but the McLaren was lapping quite a lot quicker on the harder tyres for the first two or three laps.

Kimi: We didn’t need to push. If we wanted to push, we could go much faster, for sure, but there’s no point in risking anything or using the engine more than you needed to. The first thing was that they were trying to catch us and the second thing was that they would try to overtake, but if they don’t even catch us, it’s fine. In the last part of the race, you don’t see the true speed of most of the people, they slow down if they can.

Question: You also lost a little bit of time to Felipe for about two or three laps round about lap 40.

Kimi: No, I lost some time in the traffic with the same car. I think it was Sato twice. He wasn’t too helpful but apart from that, I don’t know if something happened. There was no problem with the car. Maybe I made a mistake or had traffic. I don’t remember.

Question: Kimi, first of all, when you saw Heikki’s car in the tyre wall, what did you think?

Kimi: First of all, we didn’t know which McLaren it was. I asked the team and they said it was Heikki. It probably looked worse than it was in the end. Luckily he seems to be OK, so that’s the main thing.

Question: You now have a nine point lead in the championship. How much easier does it make your life?

Kimi: It doesn’t change anything, so far. It’s a good advantage but there are 14 races to go. You have one bad race and it’s all gone. There’s a little safety in it, in that if you don’t finish one race it’s not totally disastrous afterwards, but so far it’s been good. We just need to keep on going and try to improve the car.

Question: Kimi, were you afraid at the second pit stop when you were two seconds slower than Felipe? Did you think you could lose your lead?

Kimi: You’re always thinking about it because you’re going slower and the other guys are going full speed on the circuit but it was only because there was traffic coming when my car was being refuelled and I needed to wait, because there were two cars, Lewis and a BMW at the same time, so I just needed to wait. Once they went, I could leave my pit. You cannot see but the team always tries to tell me (what’s going on) and I had a reasonable gap, so I didn’t really worry about it too much, but you would rather go when you can and not have to wait.

Question: Michael Schumacher was here all weekend. How much did he help you and Felipe to win this race, and during the tests and during the briefings etc?

Kimi: I saw him yesterday for the first time, so I think he’s helpful for the team overall. During the season he did some tests but I do my work with the engineers and he’s not involved. He’s a part of the team and he’s always been there, so if we wanted some help from him, he would help, for sure.

Question: Kimi, in 2005 you won the race almost in a similar fashion and you said after the race that it was very boring. How was the feeling now? Was it as boring as it was then?

Kimi: I think my race was much easier that race. OK, we had a safety car then also, but it was on the first lap, so it was a pretty clear race. Now, during the race when you get the safety car, you have got to get back together, you never know if they have even more fuel or less fuel and you need to push again. For sure, I needed to push all the time, so it wasn’t the easiest.