© FIA

Today, Kimi Räikkönen was guest of the FIA press conference ahead of the Bahrain Grand Prix. The Finn spoke about KERS, updates for the Ferrari F60 and his situation in the championship.

Question: Kimi, you qualify in the top 10 but then it all seems to go away from you. A best of 10th so far. What are your feelings about it so far?

Kimi: I mean definitely not what we wanted or what I wanted either but we don’t have the speed right now in the car unfortunately. We are going to get some new parts at the next race but this race probably can be a bit difficult again. Hopefully the testing here helps a bit and it will be slightly better for us but I don’t know yet. We need to wait and see.

Question: What about KERS? When are you likely to be using it again?

Kimi: I don’t use it tomorrow. The other car will run it and then we will make the decision which way we go. We either take it and use it if we don’t have any issues with it and we will put it also in my car but really we want to look a little bit and compare the two cars with and without and see a little difference. That’s our main thing tomorrow.

Question: You have never seemed to be a massive fan of KERS.

Kimi: It is probably faster in quite a few places but the car was not too bad the last race in qualifying. I think we could have been faster even there but we had an issue with it. It is not much different driving with or without it for us.

Question: The diffuser modifications. When would you expect to get that?

Kimi: Hopefully we will have the new parts for the next race in Barcelona.

Question: You have been second and third here in the past and you tested here as well, so are you feeling a little bit more confident about this?

Kimi: Like I said, hopefully the testing at the beginning of this year will help us this week. It has usually been okay for us. Of course we are not in the position we were the last few years right now but I still think we should have a better chance here than maybe at some previous races.

Question: You were just talking about the Red Bull performance in China. Were you surprised by it?

Kimi: Yeah, I mean they have been looking fast every race. Like Timo said they were a bit stronger in the last race. I don’t know if they got some new parts or not but they have definitely been strong all year.

Question: Principally to you, Kimi: are you surprised at those who are making the early running in this season’s drivers’ championship and if so do you welcome the so-called new kids on the block getting onto the podium that you used to regard as your own territory?

Kimi: It’s normal for them to be there. I don’t think that they are new in Formula One. It’s not a big surprise. Those teams were fast in the winter testing. We are missing speed right now. Hopefully we can turn it around pretty quickly, I expect at the next race. They are welcome. For sure we would rather be there but right now we are not in a position to fight for those positions, so we just need to make the best (performance) as we can here and then hopefully get back to where we should be in the next race.

Question: We’ve had four races in five weeks. In the past you would all be going testing next week. Are you looking forward to the time off or would you prefer to be going off and trying lots of news parts?

Kimi: When you have a situation like the one we are in, it would probably be nice to try the new parts before the race but that’s how it is, we’re having some time off, so we go to the next race and sort it out there.

Question: Kimi, does it mean you will probably go to the factory and go through everything and maybe some simulation?

Kimi: All the people are working one hundred percent, they know what they’re doing. It’s more the time that’s against us than anything else. I have some other work to do anyhow. I don’t know if I will go to the factory or not. If they need me, yes, but people know what they’re doing. We usually plan the meetings if we need something but we are here and we always discuss all those things, so it probably won’t be necessary to go there.

Question: Kimi, do you feel under extra pressure, personally or from within Ferrari, to score points for the team or for yourself this weekend?

Kimi: For sure I want to score points but I don’t feel any pressure. We try to do our best every time and unfortunately we haven’t managed to score any points so far. We are all one team and we all don’t feel so good when we have bad races but that’s how it is right now unfortunately. We do the best that we can here and hopefully we get some points.

Question: Kimi, can you believe you are in this position after three races without a point compared to 18 months ago when you were World Champion?

Kimi: Things change quickly in Formula One, we know that. There are new rules. Of course we had pretty good winter testing. We probably saw in the last test that we were not where we wanted to be, exactly, but it hasn’t been the start of the season that we were looking for as a team but we just need to work harder and improve the situation and get back to where we want to be. We know that we can do it but it takes a while. That’s unfortunately the situation where we are.

Question: Do you think you are far away from Red Bull and Brawn GP?

Kimi: We are probably one second behind them, so I think it depends a bit from circuit to circuit  but that’s more or less where we are and we know that, so we are aiming to catch them up and of course, when you’re once behind, it’s not easy because everybody is also going forward, so it’s hard to catch up completely but for sure we are going to get much closer next race.