After being unable to match the speed of either Mercedes or Red Bull Racing at Silverstone two weeks ago, Kimi Raikkonen is expecting his Scuderia Ferrari team to have a better weekend this time around at the Hungaroring.
The Finn expects the Italian outfit to be more competitive in Hungary, but Raikkonen is unsure whether it would be enough to be a genuine threat for a podium finish or a race win.
“It’s hard to know how the weekend will go, the season has been going with ups and downs so far, on different tracks and with different conditions, but I’m sure that here we are going to be stronger than in Silverstone,” said Raikkonen.
“Is it going to be enough? I don’t know. I expect us to be very close, but I might be wrong, we’ll have a rough idea from tomorrow.”
Raikkonen insists a lot has to go perfectly for the team at present to have a good weekend, but still feels the SF16-H is a far better car than it was at the beginning of the season, even if the performances earlier in the year appeared to show more competitiveness.
“A lot of things have to come together to have a good weekend, we have to do a good job to give ourselves a chance to fight in the front,” said Raikkonen. “For sure our car is better than it was at the beginning of the season, but it’s still not good enough.
“I feel that in some circuits we are very close and in others we still suffer a lot. I l expect we can improve and win races, but of course things will not happen overnight. Our aim is to be up there with both cars, win races and fight for the Championship.
“It’s still far from over but we have to be realistic, we have to start winning races to beat our main rivals. There are still many races to go, we can still turn things around, we’ll fight until the end.”
