"At the beginning of the race, we were especially in trouble. I drove consistent lap times, but I was too slow. At the first pit-stop, we changed to the soft compound and the situation improved slightly, but then the safety car came out, which didn't help me at all. We lost some time during the double pit-stop [where he was stacked behind Massa] and I lost some positions in the field, [although] I managed to overtake some cars, so at least I gained some points at this really difficult weekend."
Having arrived at Hockenheim sharing the championship lead with Massa and
Lewis Hamilton, Raikkonen left trailing both after they finished 1-3 with the Finn back in sixth. With almost all of the second half of the season still to run, however, the champion has not given up hope of retaining his crown despite
McLaren appearing to have seized the upper hand.
"It's obvious that the situation has changed, as I'm seven points behind in the standings, as I was after the Canadian GP," Raikkonen noted, "The situation is quite complicated, but nothing is lost.
"We have to check and analyse every single detail we've done during the preparations for Hockenheim and find out why we went so slowly, because there has to be something that didn't work properly. Sometimes these things happen, when you want to improve the car, and I'm confident that we'll have an F2008 that can fight for the win again soon.
"We have to stay calm and react the way we know how to. The desire to win hasn't decreased at all - last year I had a period of six consecutive races without a success and the same thing is happening this year. Let's hope that seven is my lucky number this time too...."
