Kimi: This was 'best moment' to join Ferrari...

Kimi Raikkonen has revealed that he has 'full confidence' in Ferrari and that they will give him a 'very good car' in 2007 to fight for the championship, when he joins the Maranello-based squad as the successor to Michael Schumacher.

Raikkonen's long rumoured deal with the Scuderia was confirmed on Sunday, after Schumacher announced he will retire from the sport at the end of this season. Although Kimi conceded he will miss many of the people at McLaren-Mercedes, he felt the time was right for him to move on and as such he has signed a three-year deal with Ferrari.

"I'm happy to join a team with a history and all the great things, but first of all I want to finish this year as well as I can and then see what happens next year," said the Finn. "There are many reasons [why I chose Ferrari]. I have had five years at McLaren and they are a great team and nice people to work with, but in the end I wanted something else and there were only two choices - to stay with McLaren or to go to Ferrari.

"For me personally I wanted to go there one day and this was the best moment - and I think it is a great team to join and there will be people I will miss in McLaren, but that's how it goes."

As for what he expects to achieve as a Ferrari driver, Kimi said that while he hopes he can become world champion with them, it is much to early to say whether or not that will happen straight away or in 2008 or 2009: "I have been expecting it [to win the title] to happen already so you never know what will happen but for sure we try next year again and hopefully we can do it," he added, "but there are so many things that can go wrong or right so we just need to work as hard as we can and I have full confidence that the team will give me a very good car so we will see what happens next year."

Kimi meanwhile refused to reveal when he took the decision to leave McLaren, although he did say that he isn't overly worred to be stepping into the shoes of Schumacher, even though the German is the most successful F1 driver of all time - with 90 grand prix wins to his name and seven world titles.

"I'm not really concerned about that. It's a nice place to go and of course the team will expect a lot but in the end I also expect a lot from myself and I want to win. When I went to McLaren I replaced Mika [Hakkinen], who was world champion twice and that wasn't easy then. It will not be easy this time but I will go there and do my best and hopefully it will be enough for everybody," he concluded.