Kimi Raikkonen returns to the Red Bull Ring aiming for his first victory of the season and the first win since returning to the Scuderia Ferrari team in 2014.
The Finnish driver is interested to see how the newly resurfaced Austrian circuit fares compared to previous years, but he expects the overtaking that usually takes place at the circuit to continue, although he is looking to get further than he did last year when he crashed out in an accident also involving Fernando Alonso on the opening lap.
“I’ve always liked this track, I came here quite a few times in the past, and I enjoy it very much,” said Raikkonen. “It always brings good racing, not so many corners but a lot of overtaking.
“Last year it was a short race for me, it’s not funny when you are out of the race at the first lap, but I’ m sure we can do better this year.
“It’s hard to know what to expect, the circuit has been resurfaced, I heard there is going to be more grip and that’s a nice thing. It will be interesting to see how it is; it might change things a little bit.”
Raikkonen is in a confident mood heading into the race at the Red Bull Ring, and feels the team are in a position to challenge for race wins, providing they cut out the mistakes and put everything together for a perfect race.
“I’m confident with the car, I expect us to be up there in the weekend and hopefully it will be good enough,” said Raikkonen. “In general we are lacking a bit of speed and qualifying hasn’t been the easiest for us so far this year, our rivals have been very fast, in some places we are very close to them and we can challenge them, we just need to put things together and make no mistake.
“We are here to win races, we have done pretty good so far, but we also had some odd races. We’ll keep pushing until we have a chance. It is still a long season and as a team we are pushing to try to get back in the front.
“As a team we work well together and we want to improve and achieve good results, we’ll never be happy until we are back to winning.”
