Kimi: "Fierce fight ahead"
September 4th 2007 13:29
The Finn will enter this weekend’s Italian Grand Prix fourth place in the championship, 16 points adrift of Championship leader, Lewis Hamilton of McLaren.
Ferrari meanwhile, trail McLaren by 11 points, a gap that Raikkonen knows has been emphasised by error and unreliability on behalf of the Scuderia.
However, Raikkonen made his intentions clear yesterday, stressing that the only way Ferrari are to snatch victory away from McLaren is to consistently outperform them.
"My goal has to be to make up points on all of those who are ahead of me in the standings," he said "The more we can close the gap on Alonso and Hamilton the better it is for me and Felipe (Massa).”
"All the upcoming races are crucial: we can't commit any more mistakes. The team gives 110% and we have to beat our competitors and need to gain more points than them every time," he added.
Ferrari head into their home Grand Prix at Monza buoyed by a 1-2 finish at the last race held at Istanbul, a feat that would undoubtedly send a wave of euphoria through the fervent Tifosi support base.
McLaren’s domination of the timesheets at the recent test at Monza, however, has given Raikkonen ample reason to expect a tight battle.
"That was a good test, where we could try out some new things for the car," he said.
"Looking at the times, I think you can say that we have a fierce fight ahead of us; but you never know how much fuel the others use during the tests, so we'll only see during the qualifying what the situation is really like.”
"Traditionally Ferrari has been very competitive here, but also McLaren has been very strong, during the years when I raced for them, but for some reason or another I never managed to win,” he added.
"Let's hope we can make it this time, by being perfect from Friday morning to Sunday afternoon.
"Winning the home race of Ferrari would be a great feeling."
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