Thursday at Spa Francorchamps

From FerrariWorld.com

Kimi Raikkonen arrived at the circuit where he has won the past three
grands prix, at around lunchtime today and had his first encounter with
the media in the official FIA Press Conference, where he started by
confirming that he would very much like to make it four consecutive
Belgian victories.

From there it was on to the fact that the current
season has not been going quite as well as the Finn had hoped for.

"We
definitely haven’t had all the races going the way we wanted," admitted
the Scuderia Ferrari Marlboro driver.

"There has been a problem, but it
is not the first time and it is not the end of the world. We have been
trying to fix them and hopefully we have found something now and we can
get back where we should be. Things go wrong sometimes. You have bad
races but hopefully now we can have a stronger weekend and get back.

"At
the Monza test, we tried many things and we were pretty happy with the
car, but you never know from a test. It can be a good test and then you
come to the next place and it is a different circuit with different
conditions. It can get back to where it was so hopefully we found
something and we can be stronger, but it is too early to say. We had a
good feeling from the test but we will see now.

"I think our qualifying
performance should be better, because apart from Valencia, in the
races,we have not been too bad speed wise but if you are stuck behind
other cars then it is pretty much over at that point. If you can
qualify at the front it will help big time and we should be fine.
Anyhow we try to improve on all areas and hopefully that has happened."


Apart from an improvement in performance terms, Kimi also
sounded confident that the engine worries were also behind him after
the failure in Valencia.

"It was more or less the same issue with
Felipe’s engine the race before. Hopefully we fixed it. So far in
testing and on the bench we have been okay and we are pretty sure that
we have fixed the problem and it should be fine."

You cannot
talk about Spa without mentioning the weather and Kimi was clear as to
which conditions he would prefer.
 
"I would like it to be either dry or
raining all the time. It’s much easier for everybody. When it gets
between those two weathers you have more luck involved. For me,
anything is good, but maybe a dry race would nice."

With the
Finn having slipped behind team-mate Massa, Kimi was also asked if he
would have to help the Brazilian win the Drivers title.

"It could
happen. It all depends on how the next races go and where we are at the
end of the year, but the key thing is we race as a team. Hopefully we
don’t end up in this situation, hopefully I will be in the championship
up to the last race."

Hopefully,
Kimi! As well as the difficulty Kimi is having on his own, there’s the
reliability factor that could damage the championship battle as it did
for Massa last year. Both teammates had their fair share of reliability
problems but Kimi managed to keep in the fight by winning 6 races
opposed to the 4 by Hamilton and Alonso. The former world champion does feel that Kimi has been unlucky a few times and still has a strong shot for the title. This time tough it’s a harder battle
for Kimi – we need to start winning here in Belgium. We call Spa Kimi’s
playground, his back yard, or whatever, but the fact remains that it’ll
be another tough weekend. So be patient and take each day as it comes,
my fellow Raikkos.

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Full Press Conference From Autosport.com

Q. Kimi, you are the winner here for the last three years.

KR: Yes, it has been a good place. Hopefully it will be this year also.

Q. The team have said that they feel the qualifying performance should be better after the Monza test.

KR: Mainly there. In the races, apart from the last race, we
have not been too bad speed-wise but if you are stuck behind other
cars, then it is pretty much over at that point. If you can qualify at
the front, it will help big time and we should be fine. Anyhow, we try
to improve on all areas and hopefully that has happened.

Q. (Heikki Kulta – Turun Sanomat) Kimi, you have a variety of weather here; what would you prefer for this weekend?

KR: Either it’s dry or raining all the time. It’s much easier
for everybody. When it gets between those two weathers you have more
luck involved. It’s more if you get it right or wrong when it starts
raining and it gets drier, so hopefully it’s… for me, anything is
good but maybe dry would nice.

Q. (Juha Päätalo – Financial Times Deutschland) Kimi, last year
you had similar problems in qualifying but you were able to solve that.
How much can the work of last year help you to find a solution because
it hasn’t yet been that way. Is the car very different from last year
on that point?

KR: No, but we haven’t solved the issues yet. We had similar
issues last year at some point of the season. We were pretty OK at the
beginning of this season and then it seems to have turned a bit worse.
Hopefully we will get back to where we were earlier on but we will see
now if we have made improvements or not, then we will go from there.

Q. (Mike Doodson) This is a question for all four of you about pit
stops. David Coulthard recently said that he thought the racing would
be more interesting if there were no pit stops. He thinks that pit
stops distort the results of the races. We’ve also had incidents with
fires in Hungary and a mechanic who was hurt in Valencia. I’m
interested to know if you drivers would be interested or would like to
see the end of pit stops, which, incidentally, came in 15 years ago.

KR: We see now most of the overtaking taking place at
the pit stops, so without them, we probably will be running behind each
other more, nothing really happening. Sometimes people get hurt in the
pit stops unfortunately but that’s part of racing, so it hasn’t been
too bad.

Q. To all of you: what is on your i-Pod?

KNakajima: Any kind of music but most of it is Japanese pop. Since I
came to Europe, I especially tend to listen more to Japanese songs,
maybe to remind me of home.

SVettel: Any kind really, German folk songs are my favourite. Anything really, a bit of everything.

KRaikkonen: Mostly Finnish music, all sorts. You wouldn’t know, so it doesn’t matter what I say.

NHeidfeld: Yeah, similar to the others, a lot of different
stuff, not a lot of classic stuff. No German folk music, more in the
direction of R&B, hip-hop, not so much techno, more chill-out but
various stuff.

Q. Is Eau Rouge your favourite corner, and if so why?

KR: Yeah, from a driving point of view, at least,
it’s not really a corner. It’s more straight for us. In the wet it’s
quite exciting but as Nick said, before it was much more challenging
and the cars are better and we don’t go so fast, so it’s not a big deal
any more. Q. If you were not an F1 driver, what would you be doing?

KR: It would probably be something to do with motor
sport. It’s always been part of my life, so I wouldn’t think it would
be much different in some other category or motocross or something like
that.