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"It is quite a joke with the circuit"
7th of June 2008

© FIA

Kimi Räikkönen was very annoyed about the track conditions after the Qualifying of the Canadian Grand Prix. And he denounced that prbblem quite clearly in the FIA press conferernce.

Question:  Kimi, quicker of the two Ferrari drivers. You are always in the points here in Canada but it looked like sector three is always a difficult one for Ferrari. The top speed is not quite there relative to McLaren Mercedes.

Kimi: The car has been good all weekend. Even this morning it was very good and then going into qualifying it is quite a joke with the circuit. It is always the same thing, the circuit breaks down and you miss the corner because there is so much sand. I lost so much time in corner 10 as I couldn’t get around as the car just went straight and didn’t give any traction. I am a bit disappointed on that because we had a car that could fight for pole position and we will see tomorrow how it is going to be in the race and whether it is going to be a nightmare when we do 70 laps and it breaks up after two laps. It is going to be quite interesting.

Question: it is not the first time we have had problems like this in Canada. And yesterday was a difficult day to make any sort of judgement because of the weather. Can you just talk us through this morning about any signs that were there and precisely how is the track breaking up. Is it on the apex? Is the biggest problem on the edge of the racing line?

Kimi: I have had a very good car all weekend like I said and this morning also. Then suddenly because the weather heated up a little bit and the circuit didn’t last. The problem is the black patches. They have redone it every year and every year at the same places it breaks down and people go off because of that. Like I say, it is going to be quite an interesting race, difficult, so I will just try to stay on the circuit.

Question: Kimi, you backed off at the end of that last lap; where do you think you could have ended up?

Kimi: No, I was slower than the lap before, so there was no point in pushing any more. I lost all the time in turn ten with these circuit conditions. I think that we have had a very good car all weekend, so it’s a bit disappointing to suddenly have it more dependent on the circuit which is breaking up than it being up to the cars and drivers. I’m not really surprised that there is a big difference between the drivers and lap times. If you get it right, you can easily gain half a second or you lose a second. It’s a bit of a shame but at least we are in third place and we will see what we can do tomorrow.

Question: Is there anything the drivers or teams can do about the track conditions?

Kimi: Yes, you are always trying to find the cleanest line and sometimes you find it, sometimes you don’t. It keeps changing all the time. For sure, if you get it perfectly right and you don’t hit the marbles it’s not too bad, but unfortunately I never found that line in corner ten and it’s not going to be easy tomorrow. We will see what happens.

Question: As what sort of threat do you see BMW Sauber now?

Kimi: We’ve seen it before. In the last races they’ve been fast, so for sure I don’t see why they shouldn’t also be fast tomorrow. Hopefully we have a good race car. I think we have had very good speed until qualifying, so we will see. We will do the best we can and hopefully we can beat them.

Question: Kimi, are you happier in third place than in second because of the dirtier side of the track?

Kimi: Last year it was quite a disaster to be on the right hand side. We got a very bad start from there and usually I think it’s been a similar story in the past, but hopefully it will help us tomorrow. You also need to make a good start yourself. I think overall I’m a bit happier to be on that side.

Question: Do you think the track conditions here in Montreal are worse than ever and if it could be dangerous? Some drivers say it might be dangerous tomorrow.

Kimi: I think it’s the same as it has been for maybe the last three or four years. It always seems to break up and they always promise to fix it and the same happens again. I don’t know. Maybe they should find some other people from somewhere else to fix the circuit.

Question: Kimi, do you feel that the gap you have to McLaren is just because of the problems that you had at the hairpin or is McLaren a little bit further from you? And what are your chances of trying to win tomorrow or is going to be a race where you are simply going to look for a good position?

Kimi: No, we will definitely to try to win tomorrow, but it depends on many different things. I don’t see that the difference is one second in normal conditions. We’ve been very fast, we were faster than this morning and coming to qualifying the circuit breaks up straight away. I think we have had a very good car all weekend and it’s a bit of a shame that we couldn’t really use it as we wanted but obviously in the race I think we should have good speed.

Question: Kimi, you and your team-mate were very fast in T1 but in T3 you and Massa lost a lot of time in comparison to Lewis. Is there any reason for that?

Kimi: Where? In the last sector? For sure maybe they are a bit faster in a straight line but Lewis has been very fast all weekend in the last sector. But we lost more time there than before because I didn’t get corner ten right at all because you end up on the marbles and just try to wait until the car wants to turn because it’s like on ice and there’s nothing that you can do. For sure that had a big effect.

Question:We keep talking about the track conditions and how it keeps breaking up. How bad does it have to get before the drivers don’t want to come back here?

Kimi: I enjoy it here and it’s nice to come here every year but unfortunately the circumstances with the circuit always seem to be the same. Hopefully they can find a solution for next year and then we will have much better racing and more fun for everybody.

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