Kimi Raikkonen of Lotus says his car was not very nice during whole of race – Formula 1 news
Kimi Raikkonen of Lotus told that he was not comfortable with his car during the Belgian Grand Prix at Spa. The car was facing issues with grip.
He said that his car was not very nice during the whole of race. He added that their E20 was the fourth fastest car but they were a long way back from the guys in front of them. Besides, he said that he was not expecting such an easy race but it turned out
to be very different.
Raikkonen said, “It was okay on new tyres in qualifying, but we were fourth fastest and quite a long way from the guys in front of us. So I wasn't expecting a very easy race and it turned out to be very different.”
Furthermore, he said that the car was fine with new tyres but as the tyres grew old the car started sliding a lot, at the rear end. He added that he was struggling with the grip. Additionally, he said that they tried with more down force but this resulted
in a lack of straight-line speed.
“The first few laps with new tyres were pretty good but then it was sliding a lot at the rear end and I was just struggling with the grip. We ran more downforce to try and get more grip but then we were struggling with the straight-line speed,” the Finnish
driver said.
He said that he crossed Michael Schumacher of Mercedes but Schumacher got him again. He added that he knew that his only chance was to get behind at the DRS detection point and then get ahead of him, because he was unable to cross him from behind in the
DRS detection zone.
Additionally, he said that they had to take a chance to overtake him with KERS into Eau Rouge and it worked but he was almost caught again. He added that they did not have the speed in Spa but he is happy to make it to the podium at the third place.
Raikkonen’s gap from his follower at the fourth place was only 2 seconds while he was 11.7 seconds behind Sebastian Vettel of Red Bull Racing.
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