>>> Full press conference – Monaco
Q. Kimi, like David, you’re a previous winner here. What are your feelings about the circuit?
Kimi Raikkonen: It’s a nice place, always. Good fun. You never really
know before you come here how it’s going to go but I think we should
have a pretty good package, so we will see how it goes.
Q. It’s said that you’re still really
having problems adjusting to Bridgestone tyres after using Michelins;
is that the case and how does it manifest itself?
KR: I don’t know if it’s exactly the tyres but for sure I’m not as
happy with the car as I could be but I think it’s getting there. It
seems to take a bit of time but we’ve sorted out a lot of things and I
think we’ve found something in the end, so hopefully it will start to
go where we want.
Q. Is it a lack of confidence and knowing what they’re going to do?
KR: Not really, but if the car doesn’t work as you like it to, it’s
hard to go as fast as you want. I think we just need to get everything
together now and start getting better results.
Q. And looking at the championship as
a whole, you’re obviously a few points adrift at the moment, but of
course, you now have three rivals. Is it still winnable?
KR: It’s only four races old and so many things can happen.
Unfortunately we had a retirement in the last race. I think we could be
in a completely different situation now in the championship, but at
least the gap is not too big. As you said, there are many cars fighting
for it so probably the points can go differently to normal when there
are only two guys there. It’s less easy to catch anybody so hopefully
we can catch up.
Q. So you’re not too worried.
KR: Not yet, it’s a long season and I’m probably not the only one who will have problems during the season.
Q. (Heikki Kulta – Turun Sanomat) Kimi, do you think that McLaren has an advantage with their car against you on this circuit?
KR: I don’t know really. I didn’t do the test there for Monaco,
last week; I did for Montreal. So I don’t have a good idea how good it
will be. But I know that we still seem to be going good and I only know
what I know from the past that we always used to go well with McLaren,
so probably they will be strong, but I don’t think that we should be
any weaker than at any other races
Q. (Juha Paatalo – Financial Times
Germany) After Barcelona and some more problems in testing, how worried
are you about reliability here?
KR: I don’t think it is an issue. We had a problem in the race, but we
know what it was and it was a small problem that unfortunately cost our
race. I don’t think it is going to happen anymore. It has been solved.
And the problems in testing were just some new things that we tried. It
wasn’t a massive problem. It just took longer than it should (have). I
don’t have any problems about reliability.
Q. (Dan Knutson – National Speed Sport News) Kimi, how frustrating have these last few races been?
KR: A little bit, of course, but I am here the first year and I
knew in Australia that we were not 100 per cent happy with the car, so
it wasn’t a surprise that we had some hard times. I think at least we
know what we want and we have worked on it and found it. Unfortunately,
with not so much testing now, we seem to find a good set up in a test,
but then a week later in the race it is not there anymore, so we just
need to understand a little bit more. But it is a long season and we
are in good position in the championship and we keep fighting and we
see what happens…
Q. (Frederic Ferret – L’Equipe) Kimi, Mario Almondo in Barcelona
talked about a special way of working with his drivers. Can you tell us
about this?
KR: I don’t know what he meant. You have to ask him yourself. (Hehehe, that’s not a good sign if you don’t know what he meant Kimi!)
Q. (Livio Oricchio – O Estado de Sao Paulo) Kimi, who do you react to being described as a ‘bad luck’ driver?
KR: It is part of racing, unfortunately. I don’t know if it is bad
luck. Sometimes I can be, but everyone really must work harder to make
sure these things don’t happen. We cannot change it. We just have to
make sure everything is right for the races. This can always happen.
Unfortunately it is not the first time for me and probably will not be
the last time. So we just try to recover from it. It is a long season
and we haven’t lost anything yet.
News:
Street tracks may make F1 ‘boring’ – Raikkonen
May 23 (GMM) Kimi Raikkonen on Wednesday warned that the return of
street circuits to the formula one calendar could make the sport
boring. In the Monte Carlo paddock, the Ferrari driver said tight and
twisty city layouts like Monaco are a good challenge for the drivers
but often not conducive to exciting racing.
Ferrari wary of strategy nightmare
Ferrari have admitted that new safety car rules introduced this
season will make strategy choice at this weekend’s Monaco Grand Prix a
nightmare.
Unlike in previous seasons, drivers are no longer able to pit for
fuel and new rubber as soon as the safety car is called out because the
pit lane is closed for the first lap.
That means there is the real chance of leaders losing a big
advantage during safety car spells – especially if they need to pit at
the wrong moment and then get caught in traffic when they return to the
circuit.
Ferrari’s head of trackside operations Luca Baldisserri is well
aware that the safety car rules will complicate matters on Sunday – and
he is not sure how the team can avoid any likely difficulties.
"The most flexible strategy in terms of avoiding a negative outcome
of a safety car period is to reduce the number of pitstops," said the
Italian. "Like this you carry less risk.
"However, it means you must run a car with a heavy fuel load. That
in turn means you will pay the price in qualifying and you can get
stuck in traffic in the early stages of the race.
"And if nothing unusual happens in the race then you run the risk of
finding that your strategy is too safe and you cannot win the race."
Baldisserri believes the only factor that works in Ferrari’s favour
is that their F2007 is fast – something that should benefit them when
it comes to picking the right strategy for qualifying and the race.
"We definitely want to win this race, because we have not succeeded
in winning in Monte Carlo since 2001," he explained. "I think this will
involve a lot of hard work to decide what to do and it will be really
important to run a good practice programme on Thursday.
"So yes, it is an absolute lottery, but the odds can be a bit in
your favour if you have a quick car. You can then use the performance
margin to help you run a conservative strategy, but as we have seen in
the races so far this season, no one team really has that margin and it
will be a real fight in qualifying between us and our rivals.
"Monaco is a track that requires a lot of effort from the drivers,
as the walls are close, you have to be precise and also very quick." (Hehe, that’s exactly what I said in my previous blog entry 
)
Here’s a pic I just made for you fans
FUCK ISRAEL 