Q&A with Kimi Räikkönen - The grid is usually very close here

A strong start to the weekend for Kimi here at Monza today, with a pair of comfortable top ten lap times and good consistency summing up a productive day for the Iceman. With qualifying on the way tomorrow afternoon, the Finn is eyeing those last fractions of a second which could make all the difference…

Kimi, certainly a more productive first practice than we saw in Spa; are you happy with progress made so far?

Today was ok; we tried a few different things with no issues and I felt happy with car. Hopefully we can make a few more changes overnight and improve on the sixth place where we ended today. We weren’t far away from the fastest lap, so hopefully with a few small improvements we can find those last few tenths.

It’s a quick circuit here at Monza; how does it feel from inside the car?

It’s a fast track and there aren’t many corners so we have to run a very low downforce setup, which means there’s not much grip under braking and through the chicanes. It can be quite tricky but it’s the same for everyone. The difference between the tyres is not too bad so that should make things a bit easier.

What can we expect in qualifying tomorrow?

The grid is usually very close here as there aren’t too many corners to make a huge difference to the lap time, so it’s important to get it right. Of course, it’s not easy to get the perfect lap otherwise everyone would be doing it! We’ll just have to see what happens in qualifying and go from there.