(Incomplete, more coming soon)
Sure, the gap between me and the top makes life harder, but this is still the first part of the championship. We will give it our all to catch up and we will fight until the end.
In case nothing really surprising happens, there are four drivers who can win a Grand Prix. This situation might actually help me a bit with bridging the gap.
I knew that McLaren were to be very strong in Monaco, but I also knew that we could have a very good rhythm. It would be nice to have a direct confrontation. I hope that everything will finally go well at the next race. I’ll go to Canada after a short trip to Finland.
In the second session I started on extra-soft tyres and when I came out of the swimming pool chicane I bumped with the right front wheel into the guard rail.
It was not a very heavy bump, but enough to break the steering (arm) and to crack the suspension’s lower arm: in the past I already hit the guard rail in a much more violent way and nothing happened.
This time there was nothing we could do, although the team tried very hard. It would have been much too risky to get back on the track without having everything set up perfectly. This was my mistake. Let’s not make a drama out of it, because these things happen in racing and there’s no point in crying over spilt milk. (I hope he told his mechanics the same thing; they were running and panicking all over the place!)
The car was perfectly set up since the beginning of the weekend, as it also was during the tests at Le Castellet the week before. I felt that maybe for the first time this year I could have given the max with the F2007. (Oh dear, that’s just made me feel even more gutted. Oh well, he’ll bounce back. Nurburgring 2005? Failed. Next race at Canada: he won, while the others were making mistakes.)
It’s annoying when you’re always stuck behind a slower car and you can’t do anything to improve your position. At least we managed to bring home one point; still better than nothing.
Other news: An onboard shot of how Kimi hit the barrier in qualifying last weekend
ITV – Ted’s Monaco notebook
…Kimi’s crash in qualifying won’t have done much to improve his
relationship with Ferrari and the Finn ignores Michael at his peril.
Many Ferrari observers note that Kimi’s relationship with Ferrari is
not yet strong enough to go it alone and reject Michael’s input.
After his qualifying crash, I asked Raikkonen what effect it would
have on his championship. I got a classic Kimi understatement: “It
doesn’t help."
www.turunsanomat.fi
This article basically says Ron Dennis is still friends with Kimi and he didn’t really enjoy seeing Kimi’s problems in qualifying. Ron Dennis also mentioned that on track relationships with other rivals is obviously influenced by competition, but off track they are as friendly as ever. This can be said for any teams and drivers in F1 i.e we saw Alonso and Briatore hugging and shaking hands at Monaco.
Todt looks back at the Monaco GP
…Todt emphasised that Kimi Raikkonen was still very much a championship contender, even though he has a 15 point deficit to the World Championship leaders after five rounds. "It’s still very open, very open. If there were two races to go, then a 15 point deficit would be impossible. But 15 points with 12 races to go, which is an average of 1.25 points per race, is not so much."
Todt explained that in spite of there being no testing between Monaco and Montreal, the team would still be pushing hard. "We have a few modifications which we will have for the next race. You must always push harder. We respect our competitors very much. They are very good, they are very strong. They have been more reliable than us at the beginning of the season. Some others are fighting hard behind us, so we have to push. "Since the beginning of the season, two teams have been ahead of the others, and I think it will be like that for a while, but as I said before, some others behind are working hard and I’m sure we can progress. We need to progress more than the others." Once again, Michael Schumacher was overseeing Ferrari’s operation at Monaco and Todt explained his involvement. "He has been observing and if he feels he has something to say he will speak with the engineers." But he wouldn’t go so far as to say that Schumacher had a major influence in the team’s decisions. "You know the team is quite well organised. We rely on the people who spend all the time in (Ferrari’s base at) Maranello or at the track to improve the car and the development of the car, but Michael’s input is always very interesting and makes everybody happy.
Irvine puzzled by Kimi’s lack of form
Kimi Raikkonen needs "to get his act together", according to former Ferrari driver Eddie Irvine. (Oh, what a bright and unthought of comment! Irvine was always a slow minded prat.)
FUCK ISRAEL 