Thursday Press Conference, France

Full transcript available at Autosport.com

Q. A question to all of you first of all. Looking back to Canada,
your thoughts on that race, what you learned and your feelings after
the race.

Kimi Raikkonen: Not much to say, really. I didn’t score any points, so it was a bit of a bad weekend but those come sometimes.

Q. Anything to be gained or learned?

KR: No, like I said it was not the weekend we were looking for but that’s racing, so hopefully we will do better here.

Lewis Hamilton: I think it was a pretty cool weekend for me really apart from it not ending the way we wanted it to, but that’s racing.

Q. Anything to be learned or gained?

LH: Not particularly, no.

Q. Looking forward to this weekend. Kimi, you have finished every
one of your seven races here and won here last year. You finished
second from 13th in 2005, so generally speaking I would have thought a
good circuit for you.

KR: Yeah, I quite enjoy it. It’s a nice circuit, not probably
the easiest to overtake here but overall it is a nice circuit and I
enjoy it here. Hopefully we can get a good result. Last year we started
to get things going more right here and hopefully it is the same this
year.

Q. Lewis, how does your ten place penalty change your approach to this weekend?

LH: It doesn’t really. It’s a race, I’m here to win and so I
approach it the same. Obviously we want to finish, we want to get as
many points as possible. It just makes that harder but it’s quite
funny, that’s the way it goes.

Q. Does it change the set-up, does it change the strategy?

LH: I don’t particularly think so. Obviously it would be nice
to qualify on the front row which would put us just outside the top ten
but I don’t know. I will have to wait and speak to my engineers.

Q. I have been asked to ask you a question about a number plate. Have you bought LEW15?

LH: No. Absolutely no interest. That sounds about the worst
number plate I’ve ever heard of. I’m not stupid enough to spend a
couple of hundred grand on a bloody number plate. I wouldn’t spend a
hundred pounds on a number plate. A number plate’s a number plate. It
doesn’t mean nothing to me. I just heard about it today. It was the
first I’d heard about it.

Q. Kimi, last year there were more perfect weekends for everybody
but so far this year we’ve seen drivers not have good weekends; for
instance, you’ve had two bad races the last two weekends. What are your
feelings about the championship, the way it’s going?

KR: It definitely looked better for me before the last two
races but there’s still a long way to go. The points’ gap is pretty
small between all the guys at the front, so we haven’t lost anything
yet. As long as we start getting where we should be in the races, we
can easily come back but we cannot really afford to drop back more than
we are now.

It’s not the perfect place but like Felipe said, I think we have a
strong package and we just need to get the best out of it and use it.
We will see what happens now, but there are definitely many races to
go, so nothing lost or gained. I’m not too worried about it.

Q. But at the same time this is quite a crucial race to score some points?

KR: Yeah, definitely we are going to score points, if we can
just get the car to the finish, but we’re here to try to win the race,
so hopefully we can manage to do it and that would help a lot.

Q. (Ian Parkes – The Press Association) Fernando Alonso mentioned that there’s a possibility that if the worst
came to the worst, the drivers could go on strike. Could we have your
thoughts first of all on that, Robert, and to the other three drivers,
although you’re not members of the GPDA, would you actually support
your fellow drivers in this instance should the worst come to the worst?

KR: For sure I support (them). Of course it’s better
if it’s not so expensive and it’s the same for everybody, but I don’t
think there’s any reason to go on strike and not race. I don’t think
that’s the right way to go but it would be nice if we could reduce it.

Q. (David Croft – BBC 5) A stupid question, perhaps, but I assume you all pay your own super licences?

KR: Yeah.

Q. (David Croft – BBC 5) Kimi, is there another way that a
compromise could be found, if you’re not agreeing with the possibility
of a strike? What is the compromise that could be worked out?

KR: I don’t know. I don’t see that first of all you can say
that we strike but it’s never going to happen that all the drivers will
strike. Hopefully there is some nice solution that can be found at some
point.

Q. (Michael Schmidt – Auto Motor und Sport) Lewis, coming back to
Canada, looking at your performance, was it more annoying for you to
lose a possible victory with such an incident in the pit lane compared
to, say, a mistake out on the circuit and you spin or crash?

LH: No, for me it was less annoying because I find when you
under-achieve on the circuit, if you make a mistake such as hitting the
wall when you’re in the lead by ten seconds, that would have really
affected me a lot more. But it was such a silly, such a small incident
which took two of the drivers out, it was a shame, but as I said, I
wasn’t that gutted. If anything, I was more gutted for Kimi because it
was just unfortunate for being there at the time.

Q. (Anne Giuntini – L’Equipe) Sorry to disturb you, Lewis, but is
it what you call a small incident involving Kimi being a victim? Is it
smaller than a mistake that would annoy only you?

LH: That’s what I just said, didn’t I? I was just saying, in
terms of the pressure I feel on myself and then the pressure I put on
myself in the race and to perform, I feel I would be more affected if I
was out on the track and I was driving, in the lead, doing a perfect
race and then I made a huge mistake and crashed into the wall. It’s a
different feeling, that’s all I’m saying. But obviously it was not a
small incident and, as I said, I was more sorry and more concerned for
Kimi because he was having a good race.

Q. (Dan Knutson – National Speed Sport News) A question for all
of you: Auto Motor und Sport magazine said only ten F1 drivers make
over US$10m. Compared to other sportsmen are you guys really underpaid?

RK: I think my opinion is that I’m not doing it for money. Of
course, I need something for food and to live but in the end my
approach is the same when I was racing in karting. In karting I wasn’t
paid, so no difference.

LH: Yes, good answer.

KR: I’m happy with what I’m getting. I’m not doing
it for the money either, but for sure, you still put your life at risk
and you need to get something for it. For sure, if people didn’t think
that you should get paid so much, they wouldn’t pay, so there’s always
some reason. But I cannot really answer for the others. As I said, I’m
happy where I am, what I’m doing, so that’s the main thing.

Interesting comments from Lewis there. He seems more sorry now for taking Kimi out the race now than he was on the day. Hmmm I wonder what changed his mind? He usually goes on and on about how much he always learns. He finds this lesson a bit too embarassing to admit I guess. I wonder what the FIA would think? They give him a punishment but he claims not to have learnt his lesson, hmmm perhaps he would have liked a more harsh penatly? And he also was shown in pictures to be in the Ferrari motorhome, maybe offering apologies or trying to get back in Kimi’s good books? Haha, this guy has really annoyed me. Anyway, the Iceman is looking forward to racing here as he likes the circuit and other than speaking on that and the issue about the driver licenses with the GPDA, the conference wasn’t as interesting as I hoped. Anyway, keep flying Kimi!