Ferrari, Raikkonen: “Interlagos is a nice place to race”

For the penultimate act of its long calendar, the Formula 1 World Championship moves to Brazil at the weekend, to the Autodromo José Carlos Pace in Sao Paulo. Home to thirty-three editions of the Grand Prix – another ten were held on the Jacarepaguá Circuit, south-west of Rio de Janeiro – the unusual track created between the two artificial lakes Guarapiranga and Billings mixes driven parts with high-speed sections. Here, in addition to the dangers hidden in some of its fifteen corners, what also counts are the 800 meters of altitude and the direction of travel, anti-clockwise as on the circuits of Austin, Singapore and Abu Dhabi.

"It's a great place to run” is the opinion of Kimi Raikkonen, on the eve of his thirteenth time at Interlagos, the track where he became World Champion with the Scuderia in 2007. “It's a different circuit than usual, an old school track. A lap doesn't last long and there aren't many corners but it's difficult to get a good time and the times are always close: losing a tenth here equates to a lot of positions on the grid. There aren't many circuits that go counterclockwise, so it's always something new. The track is often resurfaced and while at the beginning everything goes well, then year after year it becomes bumpy and increasingly challenging again. Now they have changed the curbs a bit and therefore also the "rhythm" of the lap. In the end, the track itself isn't too complicated, but it's always difficult to find 100% performance".