HK:
Yeah, pretty much the same for me. It’s good to have Finns here on the podium and, in Finland, they are talking about the
Formula One Finnish championship, but let’s see if it carries on like this. There are many other good drivers and it’s not always going to be like this, but I wouldn’t complain if it happened a few more times.
Q: (Paolo Ianieri –
La Gazzetta dello Sport)
Kimi, were you surprised at the start when Felipe was closing on you a little bit?
KR:
Not really. I think I had enough space. He was pushing me a little bit on the right side but that’s racing. It was okay.
Q: (Mark Danby –
Auto Magazine China)
Kimi, did your tyres behave to your expectations at the end of each stint?
KR:
No. The first stint was the most difficult because I was quite close to Felipe so, like I said, once he came into the pits, the car suddenly felt much better. It’s always when you’re one or two seconds behind somebody that there’s still a massive effect on the aerodynamics. Apart from that, it was very good, the tyres felt perfect. I think the soft tyre could have been the faster one in the end, but of course we didn’t push any more in the last two stints.
Q: (Juha Päätalo –
Financial Times Germany)
Kimi, after the quite disastrous race in Australia, how much more confidence do you take from this race that the rest of the season will be okay?
KR:
We never lost confidence in our team. Of course we had quite a difficult race in Australia, but the whole winter the car has been working well, it’s been quick. Unfortunately we had some problems which we didn’t really expect at the first race and hopefully we can get rid of them like here where we didn’t have any issues but you never know, we’re still not one hundred percent happy with things. We still try to improve them but for sure, we have confidence in the team, in the car, in the people, so we will definitely do the best that we can, and hopefully we can be fast again in the next race.
Q: (Paolo Ianieri –
La Gazzetta dello Sport)
Kimi, were you surprised
McLaren were so far behind you?
KR:
No, I think it’s been the same all weekend. I already said in Australia that our speed should be fine. When you start behind someone, as in Australia, you can never use your own speed. Australia is not exactly a normal circuit, so sometimes you get slightly wrong results there. Last year we were much faster than everybody there, and coming here we were not so happy anymore, so it’s a bit the opposite now. I think the next race can be different again, so we need to wait and see and after a few races we will get a clearer picture where we are exactly.
Q: (Livio Oricchio –
O Estado de Sao Paulo)
Kimi, in the lap that you came in for the first pit stop, you did the best T1 and T2 times of the race at that stage. Could you do that with Massa in front of you or did you expect him to go into the pits to do that?
KR:
Like I said already, when he went in my car got much better because I was quite close. It always affects the car. I think it needs to be around six seconds in front of you before you don’t feel anything anymore. I was only less than two seconds, so once he pulled in my car just got much quicker and I was able to go more than half a second faster on the in lap. It was enough, we knew that it was going to be close and it worked out perfectly. Once I was in front of him the car was much better in the second stint and I was able to pull away.
