Raikkonen hoping for better

Kimi Raikkonen met the media today, in the spacious area outside the Scuderia Ferrari Marlboro office at the Sakhir circuit and he seemed to be in optimistic mood as to the outcome of the second race in the space of a week.

Kimi Raikkonen, Scuderia Ferrari.

Photo by xpb.cc.

"I don't think we underestimated McLaren in Malaysia, because we always knew they were strong," said the Finn. "Hopefully here in Bahrain we can back at the front. I think it will go well and I am more hopeful here, especially as we had a good test here. We were not able to run at the pace we wanted at the last race so I can think it will be better again here."

Faced with an implication that he had left McLaren because of problems with car reliability, Kimi made this comment: "No one know why I left McLaren. I had my reasons, but I am happy here at Ferrari. We have had a few little problems but they are just minor issues and the season is only two races old. We just need to make sure we do our best. Nothing is won or lost yet and we will have a lot of work to do during the season."

Asked about the start in Malaysia he explained it thus: "you always try and make up places at the start but when that involves your team mate, you have to be careful so that you both have a clean race. There is certainly no Number 1 and Number 2 driver in the team and hopefully we can both score a lot of points for the team."

"We need to keep pushing hard to improve our package. I am happy being with this team but there is still work to do for me to ensure I get the most out of it. We need to work on car set up and find out what is absolutely the best for me. These are small details but once we get it right I think things will be even better."

-credit: ferrari