Raikkonen: Hopefully we can stay in the hunt

Bruised, battered and brilliant; Kimi clinched a hard-earned P2 in today’s Chinese Grand Prix, and is aiming to stay right at the sharp end throughout the season ahead.

Second wasn’t quite what we wanted, but in the circumstances it was the best that we could manage today. I’m not 100% happy because we didn’t win, but it is what it is and second place is a good result after a bad start and the incident with Sergio [Perez].

What was your view on that incident?

I was moving alongside him and thought there was enough space, but in the end there wasn’t and I got pushed onto the grass. Maybe he didn’t see me and I tried my best to avoid him, but unfortunately I couldn’t so I hit the rear of his car which damaged my front wing. Luckily there was still the kerb there so I found some grip to stay on the track and carry on.

How tricky was the car to handle with the damage?

It was quite difficult out there. Obviously the car is not designed like that otherwise we would use it all the time, but I was surprised how good it was still. Of course there were some handling issues and quite a lot of understeer which was not ideal, but we just had to try to live with it. We could have changed the wing but we would probably have lost more time overall and we still had pretty ok speed even with the damage.

You’re second in the Championship, just three points off the lead; are you pleased with your start to this season?

For sure it’s not a bad start and we’re in a better position than this time last year, but we’ve only had three races so it’s too early to say. We just have to keep doing our best at every race, make sure we still pick up points if sometimes we don’t have such a good weekend and hopefully we can stay in the hunt.

You needed an entourage to make it back through the paddock today; how does it feel to have such fanatical support?

It’s great to see so many fans and there was a lot of noise up on the podium. Hopefully I can keep giving them some good results.