Kimi Räikkönen, still highly motivated, praises Lotus’s progress
Usually uncommunicative, Kimi Räikkönen was rather talkative when reflecting on his Japanese Grand Prix, the current form of his team, and finally, his difficulties in qualifying over the past few races.
After a rather respectable Japanese Grand Prix, finishing in fifth place behind the trio Vettel-Webber-Grosjean and Fernando Alonso, Kimi Räikkönen has been the subject of some questions from certain observers of the discipline, with some even going so far as to talk about demotivation.
Questioned on this subject by our colleagues from ESPN F1, the Finn believes that the announcement of his departure to Ferrari for 2014 has had no impact on his performances: « I think it has never changed, it’s the same since the beginning of the season, the fact that I’m changing teams next year doesn’t change anything for me, I still want to win races this year. I’m not interested in driving without attacking. I still want to do my best, so what will happen next year doesn’t interest me at the moment. »
Iceman to add: « I have always said that if I no longer enjoyed it, I wouldn’t come to the next race. I am happy to be able to leave when I feel the need and I have no reason to do something I don’t like. Obviously, there are many things I am not a big fan of, but at least until now, racing makes up for it. I am happy with how things are going and I hope it will be even better in the future. »
Kimi Räikkönen then reflected on his Japanese race, emphasizing the progress made by the Lotus team: “The car was very strong all weekend and we’ve made great progress with it recently,” he stated, while noting that everything wasn’t perfect from his point of view: “It’s still not exactly how I would like it, and we are trying to get rid of the understeer, which is something I don’t like.”
The Japanese Grand Prix mainly allowed the other Lotus driver, Romain Grosjean, to be in the spotlight, leading half of the race and offering resistance to the Red Bull duo. But for the Finn, there was a way to do better without starting so far back in the pack: In Japan, it was difficult to demonstrate our true pace at the beginning of the race because I was stuck behind slower cars for quite some time. After the last stop, when I had some free air, the car performed much better. It worked very well during the last part of the race and I was very happy.
The real focal point of the questions and criticisms about Räikkönen is his performance in qualifications. In this exercise, the third-place driver in the championship initially, during the first half of the season, almost systematically outperformed R. Grosjean. However, this has not been the case since the beginning of the second half of the season. Moreover, since the announcement of his departure—which coincides with the start of the Asian tour (Singapore, South Korea, Japan)—the Franco-Swiss driver has always been at least in the top four on the grid, while his teammate has not done better than ninth.
The Finn is aware that a large part of his weekend could be determined, in the absence of race incidents, by the start, and the upcoming Indian Grand Prix (on November 27) will be no exception to the rule: « I hope we can succeed in qualifying because the last five sessions have not been great for me. If not, it will be a difficult Sunday, although, of course, we will keep pushing. If everything goes well, then we can aim for [a very good result]! »
