|
Although
most of the media attention in the Monza Park centred on Scuderia
Ferrari Marlboro’s newest driver, Giancarlo Fisichella, his
team-mate Kimi Raikkonen still drew a big crowd of journalists in
the Ferrari Media Motorhome this afternoon.
Even
though the Finn always gives the same logical answer at every
Thursday meeting, the press still insist on asking him how the
weekend will go. “We don’t know until Friday as usual, what we
can do,” he repeated. “This is the first time we tackle a real
low downforce circuit. The kerbs are new here and I think that can
only be a good thing for us. There are a lot of fans for us here,
which makes it a nice race for the whole team and I hope we can
give them a good result, hopefully a podium. For Ferrari it is a
home grand prix, which makes it special, but from my own point of
view, I tackle it just like any other race. There are plenty of
Ferrari red shirts and caps and I do notice all that when I’m
out on track.
”Having
won the last race in Belgium, the home crowd are naturally hoping
for more of the same. “We have wanted to win since the start of
the year, but our car was not on the pace and I set myself the
target of winning at least one race,” said Kimi. “We’re
still not where we want to be in terms of overall performance and
we are never going to reach that point this year as we are no
longer developing new parts for the car. We will still be trying
to win more races, but it won’t be easy, as other teams are
still continuing improving this year’s car. Even though we have
KERS and it should be very useful here, we have seen there are
other cars that have been very quick without it at other races
this year. It will be very close this weekend.”
It
is fair to say that Kimi has never gone in for the “emotional”
side of the sport, so he had little to say on the subject of
having Fisichella sharing the garage with him. “I know him as
well as I know any other driver: he is a nice guy and we have a
good relationship, even if it is the same as with any team-mate,
which means we work together for the good of the team, but outside
the track, I don’t know what he does and he doesn’t know what
I do in my time. I’m sure we can produce some good results
working together for the team. Of the drivers available, he has
the best chance to do a good job because he has so much experience.”
|