Kimi Raikkonen believes he did not have the pace to be victorious at Valencia – Formula 1 news
Kimi Raikkonen says that he did not have enough speed during the European Grand Prix to claim his first victory after his comeback.
Valencia GP turned out to be a scintillating race. The unpredictability of the season was best personified in during the European GP as Sebastian Vettel who looked to be the sure shot winner of the race after he took a huge 20 second lead over the second
placed Lewis Hamilton.
An altercation between Heikki Kovalainen and Jean-Eric Vergne caused the safety car to come out and Vettel's lead was nullified.
Later Vettel's car had a technical fault and the German had to retire. Hamilton took the lead from Vettel and Raikkonen was in at third in the final stages of the race.
Hamilton and Pastor Maldonado got into a collision and this gave way to Kimi Raikkonen come in second place behind Alonso. It was a perfect opportunity for the Finn to record a victory given the Lotus car manages the tyres very well relative to others. Yet
Raikkonen said that he did not have the pace to be victorious.
“I think everybody had quite old tyres at that point, but I just didn't have enough tyres,” he said. “I had enough tyres to get past Hamilton on the second or third to last lap, but didn't have the speed today to challenge for the win.”
“I think on the start I got a good start but got blocked by Maldonado in the first right hander and lost quite a few places because of that. I was a bit behind but we made a good recovery and I had quite a hard fight with people, overtaking and I kept overtaking
until I got to second place. But of course it was not what we wanted.”
Raikkonen was clearly disappointed again at not being able to get the result that he has been close to in a few races now in the season. The Finn secured his third podium finish of the season.
It will be interesting to see how Raikkonen fares as the season progresses. Especially when most of the future Grands Prix are in hotter weather conditions which are ideal for the Lotus car.
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