Kimi: It's nice to be back

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Saturday 11th October 2008

Kimi Raikkonen declared it is "nice to be back" after bagging a front row grid slot for Sunday's Japanese GP - his first since June.

The reigning World Champion, who will start tomorrow's race on the back of a four-race point-less streak, qualified in second place at the Fuji Speedway on Saturday afternoon.

The Finn crossed the line with a 1:18.644, putting him just 0.24s slower than pole-sitter Lewis Hamilton.

"It is nice to be back," declared Raikkonen. "I'm still not where I want to be.

"I'm not very happy about how things are going, and not 100 percent happy with the car. It's quite frustrating.

"Usually qualifying has been the worst thing for us so we should be strong in the race. We'll see what we can do tomorrow.

"We have done a lot of work, and it is good to be in a good place to start tomorrow."

However, with the World title theoretically out of his grasp given his 27-point deficit to Hamilton, Raikkonen concedes that Sunday's race is about helping his team achieve their goals of taking the lead in the Constructors' Championship.

"I don't have much to lose," said Raikkonen. "We want to try to win the World Championship and it will not be easy against McLaren but we are doing our best I hopefully tomorrow we can fight for the win and if we can get it it would be nice.

"I want to finish with nice results in the last three races of the season."

Japanese GP. Click here to bet.

Your Comments

dezbo1960

"oh listen to you lot, sad sad sad, whilst it's good to see kimi finally wake up it is rather to late, and if my memory serves mw well, your beloved german was handed all his titles, i mean, could you ever see kimi being number 2 to him, i rest my case, massa has blown it for tomorrow, end of, kimi will do his best, but it's a strong grid and 90% of the teams are now clocking good times, oh and lewis will be running tomorrow, at the front and away from kimi and massa"

DarkDefender

"If I were Lewis, the fact that Raikkonen has nothing to lose would worry me more than his speed. Not saying that he's slow, or that he's going to intentionally run him off the track or something (although if there is an incident, i'd bet a significant amount of money that's how it'll be reported). At this stage Kimi's main priority is to win, and he might take risks that Massa wouldn't given the points situation."