Kimi Raikkonen still feels positive for 2012 Bahrain Grand Prix – Formula 1 news
Lotus team driver Kimi Raikkonen is feeling positive for 2012 Bahrain Grand Prix despite his poor performance during the qualifying on Saturday.
Raikkonen could only secure 11th grid position for the fourth race after setting his best time of 1 minute and 33.789 seconds and failed to make his way into Q3. Nevertheless, the Finnish driver is still very hopeful for the race.
Moreover, he said that during the race when the tyre degradation will be high, he expects to take a competitive edge with the sets of tyres which he has saved during the qualifying.
“We had the speed today and we could easily have gone through to the final session with another run, but we thought it was worth taking the risk to only do one lap in Q2 and save fresh sets of tyres for the race,” Raikkonen said. “Managing the tyres will
be a priority tomorrow, so while it was a gamble that didn't get us through to the final session it will hopefully be a strategy which pays off in the race.”
Raikkonen is currently at 8th position in the drivers’ championship with 16 points. He secured an impressive seventh place finish in the first race after staring from 17th place in the grid while in the second race he managed to secure fifth place finish
after qualifying for tenth position grid. However, he could not score even a single point in the third race.
Nevertheless, he said that they have planned well for it and will try their best to finish high in the grid while he said that they expect a close fight amongst the contenders in the fourth race.
Contrary to Raikkonen, his teammate, Romain Grosjean managed to secure 7thplace in the grid after setting his best time of 1 minute and 33.008 seconds. Moreover, Grosjean said that they are delighted with the performance of the car.
He also said that the Bahrain circuit is very different as compared to the Shanghai track and they should feel contented with the car’s setup.
“I think we can be pleased with how the car is working,” said Grosjean.
Nonetheless, he believed that they could have done better in the qualifying.
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