After ‘everything went wrong’ in Monaco, world champion is already setting sights on retaking points lead in Canada.
Kimi Raikkonen has vowed to put his Monaco nightmare behind him and reclaim the world championship lead at next weekend’s Canadian Grand Prix, despite it not being a great venue for Ferrari last season.
Although the drive-thru’ penalty only dropped Raikkonen to fourth place, he later slithered off the road at Ste Devote - a mistake shared by Ferrari team-mate Felipe Massa - and then collected Adrian Sutil’s Force India after losing control of the F2008 on a late-race restart. Having been on course for fifth place, and four points, the world champion left the
Principality empty-handed and with Lewis Hamilton hold a three-point advantage in the title race.
“Sometimes things go well and sometimes they don’t,” Raikkonen reflected, “What happened to us at Monaco was something no-one could have foreseen. Everything that could go wrong, did.
“But I never look back, because you can’t change things of the past. Now we can only analyse the causes that produced this outcome and try, as far as we can, to make sure that these things never happen again.”
The world champion now has a weekend off to contemplate his situation, and is determined to arrive in Canada poised to retake the initiative, even though McLaren again proved to be the stronger package in Montreal a year ago. On that occasion, both Raikkonen and Massa had fraught afternoons, but the Finn is confident that the 2008-spec Ferrari is a more competitive machine on circuits where its predecessor struggled.
“We go to Montreal looking for pay back,” Raikkonen said, “It’s possible to have strange races there, because it’s very possible that the safety car will be employed, but we’re ready for every kind of situation. I’m convinced that we’ll have a better car than last year. Traditionally, Canada is a good race for Ferrari; so let’s hope that we can continue that tradition.”
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