Kimi Raikkonen still believes in his Scuderia Ferrari team, after the Finn could only manage a sixth place finish in the SF16-H at the German Grand Prix on Sunday.
A largely uneventful race left the 2007 World Champion staring at the back of his team-mate Sebastian Vettel‘s car for the majority of the race.
“It was a very quiet and boring race, nothing much happened,” said Raikkonen. “At the start I had some wheelspin and lost one position on Sebastian. With new tires the car felt pretty ok but then I was starting having understeer and oversteer, as basically we lacked grip. In the last stint we had to do fuel saving so there was not much to do”.
Fuel saving was a major factor in the race which limited the progress of the Ferrari who had to settle for sixth place, with Raikkonen feeling Ferrari need to make improvements to the SF16-H if they want to compete with Mercedes and now Red Bull who have overtaken them in the championship.
“Obviously we have to improve the car in all areas, if we add downforce it will definitively help us. We all want to do better and it’s painful to see that we are not where we want to be, but I believe in the team. We need some time and hard work and we’ll get there. It’s important for us to find improvements and work as a group.”
Currently the Finn sits two points ahead of the supposedly number one driver Sebastian Vettel but Raikkonen has improved his qualifying performance and now he has signed a one year extension everything is to play for.
