Spa-Francorchamps, 4th September

Kimi Raikkonen arrived at the circuit where he has won the past three grands prix, at around lunchtime today and had his first encounter with the media in the official FIA Press Conference, where he started by confirming that he would very much like to make it four consecutive Belgian victories. From there it was on to the fact that the current season has not been going quite as well as the Finn had hoped for. "We definitely haven't had all the races going the way we wanted," admitted the Scuderia Ferrari Marlboro driver. "There has been a problem, but it is not the first time and it is not the end of the world. We have been trying to fix them and hopefully we have found something now and we can get back where we should be. Things go wrong sometimes. You have bad races but hopefully now we can have a stronger weekend and get back. At the Monza test, we tried many things and we were pretty happy with the car, but you never know from a test. It can be a good test and then you come to the next place and it is a different circuit with different conditions. It can get back to where it was so hopefully we found something and we can be stronger, but it is too early to say. We had a good feeling from the test but we will see now. I think our qualifying performance should be better, because apart from Valencia, in the races,we have not been too bad speed wise but if you are stuck behind other cars then it is pretty much over at that point. If you can qualify at the front it will help big time and we should be fine. Anyhow we try to improve on all areas and hopefully that has happened."


Apart from an improvement in performance terms, Kimi also sounded confident that the engine worries were also behind him after the failure in Valencia. "It was more or less the same issue with Felipe's engine the race before. Hopefully we fixed it. So far in testing and on the bench we have been okay and we are pretty sure that we have fixed the problem and it should be fine."

You cannot talk about Spa without mentioning the weather and Kimi was clear as to which conditions he would prefer. "I would like it to be either dry or raining all the time. It's much easier for everybody. When it gets between those two weathers you have more luck involved. For me, anything is good, but maybe a dry race would nice."

With the Finn having slipped behind team-mate Massa, Kimi was also asked if he would have to help the Brazilian win the Drivers title. "It could happen. It all depends on how the next races go and where we are at the end of the year, but the key thing is we race as a team. Hopefully we don't end up in this situation, hopefully I will be in the championship up to the last race."