Kimi Raikkonen says Ferrari are surprised by their performance having secured second place on the grid for tomorrow’s Italian Grand Prix.
The Ferrari driver will line up on the front row of the grid for tomorrow’s race, alongside Lewis Hamilton, with team mate Sebastian Vettel behind in third.
“I think we probably surprised ourselves a little bit,” says Raikkonen.
“Obviously we expected a strong weekend, but we knew that this place is not our strongest, probably, and then the car turned out to be pretty good in qualifying conditions. We had many good laps.”
Tomorrow will mark the first time Raikkonen has lined up on the front row of the grid since the 2013 Chinese Grand Prix and the first front row start in a Ferrari since Monaco 2009.
“It’s been a while,” says Raikkonen. “It’s nice to be here and for us, it’s probably our best qualifying of the year as a team.
“So we’ll try to give it a good go tomorrow and try and get a good result, not just for ourselves but for the fans and all the Ferrari people who are behind us.”
daryl
5th September 2015, 16:20
His lap was clearly better than Hamilton. He would be on pole if he was driving a Mercedes too. Vettel would be ahead of Hamilton too.
Franton
5th September 2015, 16:37
Obviously it wasn’t, as they’re behind him.
Jon (@jons)
5th September 2015, 16:45
When you have a slower car, you can do a better job than your rivals and still finish behind.
leyla
5th September 2015, 16:46
Really? I don’t think it’s that hard to understand what he means. He even said “He would be on pole if he was driving a Mercedes too”
Franton
5th September 2015, 17:24
In that case I’d suggest watching the Sky F1 comparison video between Lewis and Kimi. It speaks for itself and the OP’s comment is still wrong.
leyla
5th September 2015, 17:36
No. If you watched that comparison, it’s all the more clear that Raikkonen had a better lap.
kpcart
5th September 2015, 17:46
actually it suggests that you are wrong Franton. Raikonnen put in a mega lap with a slower car.
Lele
5th September 2015, 17:29
well, let’s see: ham, rai, vet, ros.
How do you know the one who did the best job on the day wasn’t Hamilton, after his new engine got detuned to insure he finishes tomorrow?
Do you have the ACTUAL BHP figures in hand?
I didn’t think so.
daryl
5th September 2015, 17:38
You are just making things up when you say his engine was detuned. Wolff said his engine wasn’t detuned.
I don’t think you have any idea what figures I have in my hand. But it’s clear if you watched their laps.
Ed
5th September 2015, 18:14
The other day, they asked Lauda how powerful was the engine, and he said “600 bhp”.
And you believed that, don’t you? lol
daryl
5th September 2015, 19:35
I don’t believe anything Lauda says. He just keeps praising Hamilton with lots of untruths.
I think you need to accept that you don’t know me or what I believe. Only then, you might actually make sense.
Ed
5th September 2015, 19:48
I think i already know in what you believe for the few things you wrote here today.
Pure crap, basically.
lockup (@)
5th September 2015, 18:13
Neater isn’t necessarily faster. As they carry more speed in things tend to become more approximate, or conversely if they’re not quite on the limit it’s easier to be accurate. It’s tempting to define racing in terms of errors, which we can see, but errors are not the whole story.
Who knows how Kimi or Seb would have done in the Merc, or Lewis in the Ferrari.
daryl
5th September 2015, 19:38
If you pay attention to where Hamilton was gaining lap times over Raikkonen, you would see that it was thanks to the car. You’d need to be stupid to think it’s always “the more error-free the faster the laps”.
lockup (@)
5th September 2015, 20:07
Lewis runs a pointier setup, which is the direction he’s steered development of the car, and carried more speed into the chicanes. What else can you see that tells us Kimi or Seb would definitely have been on pole in the Merc and ahead of Lewis?
Who knows, really. Kimi drove a great lap, Seb had one small error in his, Lewis’ second run wasn’t as good as his first. Anything beyond that is supposition. Maybe they’d all have had the same time.
dan
5th September 2015, 19:16
lol ham would love to be vs kimi
utsav (@utsav911)
5th September 2015, 16:44
Go kimi. You can win this one.
Jon (@jons)
5th September 2015, 16:47
Happy for Kimi and Seb, I was expecting Mercedes engines dominate in this track before the weekend started after seeing how good Lotus and Force India were in Spa.
Hopefully Lewis will botch his start again tomorrow and we can see a Ferrari 1-2. That would be a good story.
Dynamite Clock (@dinaveer)
5th September 2015, 17:49
Ferrari 1-2 victory tomorrow in their home circuit would be sweet. All it requires is that Hamilton has some bad luck/problems tomorrow, which I don’t buy. But… anything can happen.
kpcart
5th September 2015, 17:50
to me it seemed the Ferrari drivers excelled at their home track. Hamilton got the expected result and rosberg failed. hoping for a “Race” tomorrow, but even if Ferrari get ahead at the first turn, it wont be like hungary as the Mercedes will DRS pass them with ease with the long straight. I see Rosberg struggling, he is a dreadful overtaker compared to the other top drivers.
HK (@me4me)
5th September 2015, 18:11
Kimi has been looking very happy all weekend, including at the Ferrari event were he, Seb and Arrivabene met the Tifosi. I think Kimi goes through a bit of the same effect Massa is experiencing at Williams, and feels supported and respected by the team, his opponent and his boss. Hope he can have a good start tomorrow and a trouble-free race.
bull mello (@bullmello)
5th September 2015, 22:33
Really a shame about Kimi being a washed out has-been.
Sarcasm intended. :-)
SauberS1 (@saubers1)
6th September 2015, 0:10
I’m very glad to this result.