Post-qualifying press conference - China

by - 10/18/2008 03:30:00 p.m.

Q. Kimi, talk us through Ferrari's weekend so far.

Kimi RAIKKONEN: I think it hasn't been the easiest weekend. Anyhow, we tried many different things and played around with the set up and finally today we found a pretty okay set up and it seemed to work pretty well in the last qualifying. It is always difficult to say from the first and second qualifying but as long as you are in the top 10 in the second one it is fine and it can be a completely different story in the last one. The car was good. The McLaren has been very fast here but we will see tomorrow in the race conditions where we are going to be against them but definitely I was pretty happy out there how things went. I mean we are still not the first place but nevertheless we have a very good place as a team to start the race tomorrow and try to win.

Q. You have spoken about various issues with the car. How good was that lap from a driver point of view and from the point of view of the car?

KR: I mean it was pretty good. Of course you can always improve but we had some issues in certain places this weekend and we have not been able to get completely rid of them but fixed them as well as we could. I don't know how much probably the difference is, three tenths or something, which is quite a bit but like I said the fuel loads can make a difference and we will wait and see what we can do tomorrow but definitely we are going in the right direction all the time and hopefully it starts going better from here.

Q. Kimi, very good improvements from both Ferrari drivers in Q2 but that's when you used the softer tyre over the harder tyre.

KR: Yeah, it depends on what you do. The most important thing is to get through both of those. The last one really counts. As long as you are in the top ten after the second one that's enough. Sometimes you don't get the clear picture really. Only the drivers and the team really know what's going on. For me it's not a big deal being first or tenth, as long as you get through. The last qualifying was good, not as good as we wanted but I think 0.3s is a bit... for sure, how things went today I could not have managed to do that lap time but I'm pretty happy with the car. We definitely made some improvements during the weekend. We tried many things, so it wasn't too bad really.

Q. What's your principal aim tomorrow? Is it quite clear, just to go out there to win?

KR: Yeah, I will definitely try to win the race, see what we can do in the race. As I say, McLaren have been very fast here and hopefully tomorrow in the race we can challenge them and try to win. It can turn out to be a difficult race with the weather and everything but apart from that, I think we are in pretty good shape.

Q. (Daniel – Oriental Auto) Kimi, if necessary will you let Massa pass you easily?

KR: I know what the team expects. We want to get the best possible results for the team and see what we can do tomorrow.

Q. (Heikki Kulta – Turun Sanomat) Kimi, is qualifying easier for you now?

KR: It's getting better. It's not probably exactly what we want but I'm happier with the car, it's easier to get the lap now. As I said, we're definitely going in the right direction but it's a bit late. But anyhow, we're finding different things and it's good for next year, at least.

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