It’s always good to finish the Grand Prix weekend in the podium. Up there you see how much people have enjoyed the race, you see your team having fun – and you sum up for yourself, how good was your own race.
As a team, for the first time, we got more points than anybody else. Obviously, it cannot be much better than that! But as a team, we also felt, that there could have been even more points to get from this race, as well.
Everybody knew before coming to Barcelona, it was going to be very tight again between so many teams, and it would end up being down to tyre strategy to gain a bit of advantage, if possible. Our car has been good and strong everywhere, but the hotter is the track temperature, the better it is for E20.
For the starters, obviously, it was ideal weather for us. The sun made it feel like summer – and the track temperature was exactly, what ’our doctor ordered’ it to be!
We did our usual Friday programme, the long runs were giving promising data, and the tyre was working as we expected it to work. No problems, with that at all.
The qualifying was ok. We had too much some set-up issues before starting the Q1, but in the final run for the day, the car was at it’s best. Actually so good, that it surprised me in one corner. We lost some time and were out of the first row. But, all in all, it was a solid qualifying result to go for it in the race.
Obviously, the weather was not doing us any favors, while the real good sunshine from previous days was fading for the race start, and the so important track temperature came down accordingly, too. We went along with our tactics. The start was ok, but I could not improve more than one place.
With a hotter temperature, maybe, the second stint would have been our stint, but in this time, it was the stint, where we lost our way to higher positions. The soft solution was not the optimal solution this time. After second stint the gap to the leaders was just a bit too much to catch up in the end.
Well, we tried our best. With the hard tyre working better, we got close again - and a few laps more to go, we could have won. But it’s waste of energy to think, what could have happened. We got P3, 15 points and gained 3 places in the championship. As a racing driver I cannot be 100% happy, if I not winning after being so close, knowing the potential of the car, and being the fastest of top 3 drivers at the end of race. But You cannot always get what You want!
Source: KIMIRAIKKONEN.COM
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