Speaking in Thursday’s FIA press conference, Kimi Räikkönen gave a qualified assessment of the Lotus E20 car in which he is making his return to Formula One.
“We have a good package but we probably haven’t got the best out of it in all conditions at all races –but that’s up to us,” said the 2007 Champion. “We are still pretty happy but of course you want to do better. We wish to win races but it hasn’t happened so far; hopefully we can win some this year. It’s not easy and we know that. We keep trying to improve things and learn from the things that we do and we’ll see what we can do in the second part [of the season].”
To emphasise his point about not getting the best out of the car across a range of conditions, Räikkönen pointed to his performance last week in Hockenheim. “We had a good speed last weekend, apart from the rain. We couldn’t get anything in the rain for some reason. That really put us in a not very good position,” he said. “The car has been good in the wet in Silverstone but for some reason not in qualifying in the last race. I think we’re finding the place where I want to be with the car and the set-up and things like that and hopefully we can be a bit better here than we were last week.”
The Finn acknowledged the power steering problems he had earlier in the year haven’t completely gone away – but claimed their significance is not as great as has been made out. “There’s no point to talk about it because when we say something people try to make a massive story out of it. Like I always said, it’s not perfect – it’s still not – it’s improved a lot since we started but still a way to go.
“It’s OK to race; it’s not like it’s somehow going to make me half a second faster if we going to get it exactly as we want. I know that I’ve driven better ones and there’s definitely still things that we can improve. We’re working for it but it’s not the easiest thing to get right.”
Despite not being among the seven drivers to win races this year, Räikkönen currently sits fourth in the Drivers’ Championship.