Q&A with Kimi Räikkönen - We always try to win

Another storming drive from Kimi to rise up through the ranks and clinch second place – his fifth podium of the season. The Iceman though, has no intention of letting up in his Championship charge…

Kimi, so close to the win but it didn’t quite come; are you happy to take second place away from this weekend?

You can come as close as you like to a win, but at the end of the day we didn’t get it so there’s no point worrying about it. I had an ok start but then we had an issue with the KERS and I could only use fifty per cent of it and lost a position to Fernando [Alonso]. From there the first few laps were not so good because we were trying to get the KERS working but after that it was fine. Unfortunately I was stuck in traffic for quite a long time, so I just tried to save my tyres and push once we got some clear track. It seemed to work both times and we gained a lot of time on those few laps.

It all got a bit close with Romain in the first corner; just how tight was that?

The team told me it’s going to be very close after my stop and I made a mistake with the pit lane speed limiter so for maybe five extra metres after the line I was still on it. Luckily there was still enough of a gap and although we were side-by-side in the first corner I could keep my position quite easily. It was just one of those things.

Did you feel like you has a shot at passing Lewis [Hamilton] with the DRS at any stage?

Not really to be honest. It was not so bad following the car in front through the last corner but in the turbulent air you’re always going to be about a second later on the power so they just pull too far away. The straight is not long enough to catch up so even the DRS didn’t really give you any chance to overtake. My only real hope was that he would run out of the tyres and then we would have had a shot but that never happened. If there were maybe twenty more laps it could have been a different story.

It’s another case of ‘so close yet so far’ this weekend; surely that win is on the way…

We always try to win; some days you get close to it and it’s a bit disappointing that we haven’t quite made that final step. We know the reason though; we’ve not been so strong in qualifying as we have in the race which makes life harder for ourselves on Sundays. Of course we would rather win than come second or third but it’s a long season and I think we’re improving all the time. If it comes then great, if not we’ll keep trying. I’ve been in the business long enough that I don’t really worry about things too much. We’ve improved our position in the championship both for myself and for the team, so as long as we keep doing that hopefully the win will come.

Source: www.lotusf1team.com