Raikkonen`s much-needed Malaysian boost

After a troubled start to his title defence in Melbourne, the Malaysian Grand Prix proved to be a much more successful outing for defending champion Kimi Raikkonen. Ahead of the next round of the championship in Bahrain, Raikkonen looks back on his perfect Sepang run.

“Obviously it`s great to win again. I had a really good feeling flying back home on Sunday evening. The race went exactly according to our plans. When we don`t have any problems, we know that we`re fast and that we can win. This is what happened in Malaysia. That should have happened also in Australia, but in Melbourne we had one of those weekends when nothing goes right.”

“Again in Sepang at the beginning it didn`t go too well for us. We almost lost the whole first free practice session, when I ran out of fuel. But that was due to a mistake of the team and not a technical problem. The qualifying could have gone better, but in the end what counts is the race, which was almost perfect from the first to the last lap. I had a really good start and if I had pushed to the limit I might have even taken over the lead at the first corner. With Felipe we knew each others fuel levels so there was really no point in fighting with my teammate.

I preferred to wait for the pitstop.”

“It`s pretty difficult to stay behind another car, but I had to stay close enough to make my game on this single lap after Felipe went in for his stop. It`s really a huge difference when you can drive with no other car in front of you. Without looking at the details I think that the car was immediately half a second faster. I could get back in the race ahead of my teammate and I could see him falling slightly behind. I knew that I was going to win the race in case there weren`t any problems.”

“All in all it was an easy victory. Once the situation was stable, we thought about bringing the car back home. I could have gone much faster though.”

E.A.

28.3.2008   ▪ Formula One    ▪ Malaysia, Raikkonen    ▪ en.f1-live.com