Raikkonen: “We will try to help Badoer”

After the longest mid-season break in the F1 calendar, work began again as usual in a very warm and sunny Valencia, where Kimi Raikkonen met the press in the Scuderia Ferrari Marlboro motorhome, overlooking the port that It offers a complete view of this interesting city circuit. I work as usual, but with a different lineup as far as the drivers are concerned, given that Luca Badoer replaces Felipe Massa.

The Finn doesn't think this will change things much as far as his weekend is concerned. “I don't care who my teammate is and this is work for me, as always, I will try to do my best. It's true that Luca hasn't raced for some time, but he has played an important role in the team for a long time. It will be very interesting to see him at work, even if it won't be an easy weekend for him. But all of us on the team will stand behind him and try to help him as much as possible. If all goes well, we can both have a nice weekend. For the team it's a much more important change than for me, given that I work with the same people as before. But as I said, we will do everything to help Luca wherever he can."

As far as Kimi's expectations are concerned, they depend on the usual factors: "Our performance varies depending on the type of circuit and the type of tires we have available, so it's difficult to make predictions" explained the Finn. “If everything goes the way we want and 100%, then maybe we can fight for the podium. But as always we have to wait and see what happens in tomorrow's free practice to get a more precise idea. The track has a lot of similarities with Monaco and Hungary, so it should be a good place for us."

The F60 has proven to be more competitive in recent races and Kimi explained that it is reaching the end of its development programme. “We will try to improve the car as much as possible, but we can't do much more on this car as we have to concentrate on next season,” he said. He also confirmed that the F60 will continue to fit KERS this weekend. “KERS has helped us a lot during the year, otherwise we wouldn't continue to use it and I'm sure it will give us an edge here too, although there is no precise data on this yet”.

And the final message was for Felipe, back home in Brazil: "I hope he gets better very soon and gets back to racing as soon as possible."