Kimi Raikkonen: We could have won

Kimi Raikkonen has voiced his dissatisfaction at only finishing the Spanish Grand Prix 3rd, with the former World Champion adamant that he could’ve won the race had the opening few laps gone his way. At the start, the ‘Iceman’ tried a move around the outside into turn 1, but after hitting the limiter in fifth gear, Raikkonen failed to make the move stick.

Towards the end of the race, Kimi Raikkonen began reeling in the leading duo of Pastor Maldonado and Fernando Alonso at a phenomenal rate, however the Lotus driver ran out of laps and eventually finished the race 3.8 seconds behind the leader.

“I had a very good start and had a chance to overtake on the outside, but we did not have enough speed and I hit the limiter in fifth gear.” Said Kimi Raikkonen, “I am a bit disappointed because if everything had gone right in the first part of the race, we could have won. Our car can do it, but everything has to fall into the right place to be able to get on to the top step. We’re not far away from it and so far we’ve made good steps forwards; the car feels strong everywhere.”

With Kimi Raikkonen’s team-mate Romain Grosjean finishing 4th, Lotus were the strongest points scoring team at the Spanish Grand Prix. This fact alone, coupled with the competitive pace of the Lotus’, will eventually end in victory for the Enstone based team according to team principal Eric Boullier.

"It’s a very strong result and it’s a great reward for the team today.” Explained Eric Boullier, “I think we can expect a stronger season than we had last year and we need to carry on scoring points as we have in the last two races. I’m sure a win could arrive at some point this season. After qualifying you build expectations, and we could have expected after the strong race pace we had in Bahrain that we could have done the same here, but it was not the case.”

Lotus now lie third in the Constructors Championship, behind McLaren and Red Bull and 21 points ahead of Ferrari. If Lotus can finally find that elusive win soon, they could become a serious contender for the Championship.

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