Q&A with Kimi

As covered earlier on KRS, we hoped that there wouldn’t be a need to discuss it further but as well as speaking on the F1 testing this week at Hockenheim Kimi was asked in an interview by ITV on the incident on the starting grid before the British GP with photographer Paul-Henri Cahier. And this is what Kimi has to say:

Kimi Raikkonen may not have had an answer for Lewis
Hamilton’s blistering pace over the first two days of the Hockenheim
test, but the Finn was nonetheless satisfied with the set-up work
Ferrari carried out ahead of the German Grand Prix. Speaking to reporters at the circuit, he also defended his
actions in pushing over a photographer who he felt provoked him on the
grid at the British Grand Prix.

Q: How has your work gone today?

Kimi Raikkonen: Not too bad. We had a small issue
with the car but we fixed it. We’re just trying different things on the
set-up side and it seems to be working quite well so far.

Q: Are you confident you have found a good set-up?

KR: We will see at the race next weekend. We always
try different things and if we find something useful for sure we are
going to use it. But it’s always difficult to say how it is going in
testing.

At least we know what we are doing and I’m pretty happy with how the car is feeling.

Q: McLaren have set the pace at this test; do you expect them to be particularly strong here?

KR: I don’t know. I haven’t looked at what lap times they are doing; we have enough work to do ourselves.

For sure McLaren will be fast here, but I think we have a good
package too. We haven’t lost any speed – we just need a good clean
weekend.

Q: They call you the ‘Ice Man’ but we saw you defending your privacy forcibly against a photographer on the grid at Silverstone…

KR: He came on top of my helmet, I had my stuff there, so I pushed him a bit and he fell on his back.

People try to make a big thing out of it, but he shouldn’t come on
top of my stuff. It was just a small thing and people tried to make a
big story out of it.

Q: Don’t you feel Ferrari is wasting the advantage it has over the other teams?

KR: I don’t know what you mean…

Q:
I mean that the car has been really strong, but due to some incidents
you have not scored the points that you probably expected…

KR: Of course we were not so happy with the results we got in the end, but we got back into the joint lead of the championship.

Probably we should have got more points but we made a mistake – it
happens in racing. It’s not the first time and unfortunately it’s not
going to be the last time, but it’s just part of the game and we need
to learn from it.

We have a strong team, we’re pushing hard and people expect us to win every race but it’s not easy.

For sure we are going to start winning again soon and we’ll just keep working hard.

Q: McLaren tried a new shark fin engine cover here – aren’t you curious to try it?

KR: I don’t want to try their parts! We do our own thing and we put effort into what we think are the key things.

We will see what we will do in the future, but like I said we are
pretty happy with what we have done here trying different things.

I haven’t seen what McLaren are doing or even put any effort into
that; we have our own things to look at and that’s much more important.

Q: Do you like driving at Hockenheim and does it suit the Ferrari?

KR: We are quite happy how things went today. Yesterday was more difficult due to the weather.
The circuit is nice – I always enjoy it here – but it’s too early to
say where we are against the others. But the feeling in the car is
pretty good, which is always a nice sign.

So there we have it: "He came on top of my helmet, I had my stuff there, so I pushed him a bit and he fell on his back. People try to make a big thing out of it, but he shouldn’t come on
top of my stuff. It was just a small thing and people tried to make a
big story out of it."  What’s Formula One without some gossip or drama? I don’t know about the majority but I’m sure Kimi doesn’t care about that at all. Let’s just leave it there shall we.