Scuderia Ferrari driver, Kimi Raikkonen is looking forwards to this weekend’s Brazilian Grand Prix, held at Interlagos.
“Interlagos is a great and unique place,” commented the Finn. “I have great memories here from 2007, it was my first year with Ferrari and I won the Championship at the end of a tricky season.”
The title has been decided no less than six times at the Autódromo José Carlos Pace, with Raikkonen sharing the accolades with the likes of Lewis Hamilton, Sebastian Vettel, Jenson Button and Fernando Alonso. The circuit is notoriously good for overtaking, something Raikkonen appears to relish.
“Driving has always been good here, there’s a lot of history and heritage with great Brazilian drivers and people are very passionate about Formula 1. It’s the kind of track that always produces better racing than others.
“Obviously the layout is a big key, because you can follow the people and the long straight creates opportunities to overtake.”
He also seemed optimistic that the teams should be closer in terms of lap times, meaning that there could be an interesting battle between Red Bull Racing and the Maranello-based team this weekend – something that appears to have caused no end of controversy this year.
“There are not many corners here and it’s very close between the teams because the lap time is a bit shorter,”
said Raikkonen. “To have a good car you need the same stuff you need in any other race tracks, the car has to be strong everywhere.
“We have been trying to improve our performance all year, we need more grip and more power to go faster, it sounds very simple but unfortunately it’s not.”
However, the Finnish driver did have an overall positive outlook on the season, commenting that, “so far we understood quite a lot of things and I have a lot of trust that we will fix these issues.”
Finally, he mentioned his old teammate, Felipe Massa, who will be driving in his final home race this weekend before his retirement at the end of the season. He complimented him and said “this is also the last home race for Felipe, we have been team-mates and we have always had a good relationship. As long as he’s happy, that’s the best thing to do and I wish him the best for his future.”
