Thursday’s press conference – Hungary
Q. In fact, Kimi, it’s the same with you; this is almost the Finnish home race, isn’t it?
Kimi Raikkonen: Yeah, it’s closest, at least. We usually get
a lot of Finnish people here. It’s easy to come and 
they have lots of
different opportunities to come, and it’s always nice to see them.
Q. Now, I keep hearing stories in the press room about a gorilla suit…
KR: (Laughs) Yeah, but was it really me? You don’t know. You hear a lot of stories always from the people there, so…
Q. But you won. Are you going to disclaim the win?
KR: Yeah, we’ve got the trophy already. It was just a boat race and we just went for fun.
Q. Pole here in 2006, and you won in 2005 from fourth on the grid. What are your chances?
KR: I don’t know really, it’s a bit different to many other
circuits, probably a bit more like Monaco but I think we have made some
progress and we should be stronger than we were in Monaco. If this is
closer to that, we could be in a good position, but we will really see
tomorrow how the car works here.
Q. What have you been able to change since Monaco, because it was a problem on the twistier circuits.
KR: Yeah, but I think it’s… OK, it’s closest to Monaco here
but this is still a proper circuit. We’ve got some new parts from the
test last week, so I think they are going to help because it’s quite
bumpy here and we need to go over the kerbs, so hopefully it helps us.
Q. (Paolo Ianieri – La Gazzetta dello Sport) A question for Kimi.
How do you see your chances in the championship? At the moment you are
pretty far away and there are not many races to go.
KR: Well, I am not any further away than before the last
race. We had a bad result but we didn’t get more far away in the
points, so… You see like in the last race many things happened and
suddenly some people gain many points on the leader and some people
not. But there are still many races, so we keep pushing and if we can
keep the speed that we have had in the last five races I think still we
have every chance.
Q. (Dan Knutson – National Speed Sport News) Kimi, McLaren
withdrew Fernando Alonso from this press conference, I can only assume
due to the situation between McLaren and Ferrari. Do you think that
Ferrari should have had you not participating in this press conference
either?
KR: I don’t know what the reason is for this, maybe it is
something else, so… I was happy to come here. I need to do the same
thing either here or out there in the paddock, so for me it doesn’t
matter.
Q. (Paolo Ianieri – La Gazzetta dello Sport) Kimi, are you still
worried about reliability problems with Ferrari? Or do you think here
you are going to solve them once and for all?
KR: It is racing and you always can have some problems with
the car. That’s a part of it, unfortunately. I think so we understand
the problem and we have made some improvements already and we are
pretty sure it is not going to happen again. But like I said, you never
know. I was happy after Saturday at the qualifying but like I say the race
is so long that anything can happen and we couldn’t finish the race
unfortunately. So we know we can be fast but it is too early to say,
but technically we are pushing to improve the reliability.
Q. (Ian Parkes – The Press Association) Kimi, can you just tell
us your reaction last Thursday when the World Motor Sport Council gave
their decision? Were you as angry as the rest of the team seem to have
been? And similarly what was your reaction this week when you heard the
case will go to the court of appeal?
KR: I haven’t really followed it too much apart from what I
hear from other people and I don’t really want to get involved, so it
doesn’t matter if I like it or not. What I think isn’t going to change
things, so I just follow what happens and there are people who make
decisions. I guess for everything there is a reason, so we will see
what happens in the future.
Q. (Ian Parkes – The Press Association) Is there a sense between
you and Felipe [Massa] that you want to prove Ferrari on the track
rather than everything that is happening off the track?
KR: For sure we are going to push as hard as we can to win
races and fight for every victory, every point. That’s the only way of
racing. We are not waiting to gain some advantage in any other way.
That is a completely different story and we keep racing as before. So
hopefully we can catch up.
Q. (Byron Young – The Daily Mirror) Kimi, in a letter from Ron
Dennis to the Italian Motorsport Authority today he suggested that the
Ferrari was illegal for the first race in Australia.
KR: I don’t know anything about the letter at all. So I guess
we would have been disqualified if we had been not legal, so probably
he was not right.
Q. (Heinz Pruller – Kronen Zeitung) Gentlemen, what are you planning for the holiday time? Kimi, on the boat probably?
KR: I don’t know, I don’t have any plans. For sure something fun, so we’ll see.
Q. (Panos Diamantis – Car and Driver) Kimi, you said at the
Nurburgring that your car being light on fuel was less good than being
heavy on fuel. Do you think that compromises your strategy a bit?
KR: No, my car was good in qualifying. In the race maybe we
didn’t get the tyres working as we wanted. The first two qualifying
sessions don’t make much of a difference, the last qualifying is all
that counts. We had a perfect car and we had plenty of fuel in the car,
so…
Q. Kimi, are you satisfied that Ferrari can now manage the
super-soft tyres? Because it seemed in Monaco and Canada that there was
some kind of problem with those.
KR: I don’t think we had any problem with the tyres, we just
weren’t as strong maybe at those races as we have been in some others.
We still have been using the soft tyres better than the rest in the
last races, so I don’t see that we have had any problems at any point.
Q. (Ian Parkes – The Press Association) Kimi, you have said that
you are not too concerned about what is going on behind the scenes. But
is it a sort of frustration or annoyance that all this is still going
on in the background? And also are you a believer that the race should
be won on the racetrack rather than in the courtroom?
KR: For sure I think so whatever happens in the coming weeks
or months in the championship for sure for everybody it would be nicer
to decide it on the circuit. But sometimes there are some other issues
that are going to get involved in the whole situation.
But I don’t know too much about the whole situation and the
details, so I can’t really say anything about it. You hear things, but
you hear many different things on the same story, so I just wait and
see what happens and keep doing my own thing.
I wish things were as simple and straightforward as Kimi is. His comments in response to the McLaren/Ferrari scandal in particular are just right. Okay, he may not be openly for or against what’s happening but a driver shouldn’t have to be in the middle of these sort of things, and it’s good that Kimi is just ‘doing his own thing”. Maybe he should be annoyed just by the thought of his car being potentially illegal, according to Ron Dennis. But the thing is, anything is ‘potential”, Kimi is just a ‘lets wait and see’ type of person. Which is probably more efficient hehe….
Ted Kravitz: The championship is still on, you dropped a
load of points at the Nurburgring but you could have won that race
couldn’t you?
Kimi Raikkonen: I am not
that pleased, but we didn’t lose any more points. It’s one race less
and we didn’t get the points that we wanted but anyhow we are pushing
as hard as we can and if we can keep the speed that we have had in the
last races, for sure we can gain on the others.
Ted: So you believe that if there are no more crazy races and it stays dry you are in a position to win every race?
KR:
That’s what we are aiming for but you never know. It can turn out to be
wrong but I think we have a strong package and as long as we keep
everything running well and get the set-up right we should be okay.
Ted: Been a lot of talk about the hearing in Paris. Ferrari was very angry with the result, do you agree with them?
KR:
I don’t know all the details too much. I know what’s been going on, but
it doesn’t really change if we are angry or not. I think it is still an
on-going thing and we will see what happens in a few weeks.
Ted: Can you imagine how angry Ron Dennis is now that the whole thing is still going on with an appeal still to be heard?
KR: Yes, but I think there is a reason why it is still going so like I said, we will have to wait and see what happens.
Ted: Is it a distraction for the team at the track?
KR:
Yeah sure we could do without it. But I think we have to keep racing as
before and we do our stuff here, and let the other things go on
outside. I think it is more of a distraction for the others than for us.
Kimi expects to take fight to Macca
"Everybody says that McLaren has to be stronger than us here; but I don’t think that this will be the case,” he said.
“We have taken a big step forward since the race in Monaco and it
will be really interesting to see how competitive we are over the
weekend.
“The Hungaroring is very slow and winding; so the two most important
things here are the right angle entry into the corners and the
traction: if these two things work out, then you have good cards in
your hand.”
“I archived the European GP already," he insisted.
"I don’t want to talk about it anymore: What is for sure is that I will not come to Hungary as someone defeated. Not at all!"
“I’m more or less in the same situation as I was at the Nurburgring,
but it’s clear that I can’t allow myself another race without points.
“I still believe that it’s possible for me to win the title: just
look at the last race and you can see that everything can happen.
“A bad race for my competitors is enough to immediately reduce the gap.”
FUCK ISRAEL 