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Kimi
Raikkonen believes it will be hard for his Ferrari team to retain
third place in the constructors' championship this season.
Although the Italian squad has made progress since the start of
the campaign, the Maranello outfit decided to stop development on
this year's car.
Rival
McLaren is now in fourth position, just five points behind and
with a bigger momentum than the Italians. Despite Raikkonen
finishing on the podium at the European Grand Prix last Sunday,
the Finn is aware that keeping third place will be a difficult
goal to achieve.
"I
really enjoy winning, but even a third place can give you some
good feelings," said Raikkonen. "We started into the
European GP from the sixth position on the starting grid, we had a
good start and we managed to gain another place on the podium: we
can hardly expect more than this. With the points we gained, we
are still ahead of McLaren in the constructors' championship. This
is our goal as a team, but it's very difficult to reach,
considering that we stopped developing this car, concentrating on
the one for the upcoming season."
The
Ferrari driver said his target for this weekend's Belgian Grand
Prix is to repeat the Valencia feat and be in the top three again.
"The
main goal is to hold the standard of the last races, which means
that we have to try to get on the podium again," he added.
Kimi's
official Ferrari blog (©
Ferrari):
"I
really enjoy winning, but even a third place can give you some
good feelings. We started into the European GP from the sixth
position on the starting grid, we had a good start and we managed
to gain another place on the podium: we can hardly expect more
than this. Our goal is to fight for a position amongst the first
three teams and we’ve reached this goal. It was definitely one
of my best weekends so far this year, together with the ones in
Monaco and Budapest, obviously from a technical point of view.
This
year the car runs very well on the city circuits and on the ones
with slower corners. In Valencia I had a very good feeling since
Friday’s first practice session, when we drove a lot with lots
of petrol on board and we knew that if we could gain a decent
result in the qualifying and had a good start we’d have the
possibility to fight for a place on the podium – and that is how
it went in the end. The F60’s race set up is better than the one
for the qualifying; due to that fact we could be faster than
Kovalainen’s McLaren during the middle stint: during this part
of the race I was constantly informed about my own and Heikki’s
lap times, giving 110%. The car was set up well and the speed was
high enough to overtake him during the pit stop.
With
the points we gained, we are still ahead of McLaren in the
Constructors’ Championsip. This is our goal as a team, but
it’s very difficult to reach, considering that we stopped
developing this car, concentrating on the one for the upcoming
season. In a couple of days we’ll be on the track again for the
Belgian GP. The main goal is to hold the standard of the last
races, which means that we have to try to get on the podium again.
I always loved racing at Spa where I’ve won many times since I
started my career in the smaller racing series. I really like
driving here: 44 laps might be not enough! Last year everything
went up in smoke due to the rain at the end of the race and I ran
into a wall: I set all on victory and I didn’t have anything to
lose. This year the situation is slightly different, also because
we don’t have a car that’s able to compete on the highest
performance level. But we’ll give it our all - and even more -
for a good result.
You
need a very good set up for the car for the fast corners in Spa.
Overtaking doesn’t happen very often this year so it’s very
important to have a good qualifying. We’ll always have the KERS
at the start."
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