Kimi Raikkonen said before the race for the Spanish Grand Prix that Lotus will have to work hard if they want to take part in the fight for the title of world champion this season. The Finn said it will be difficult to follow Red Bull in the development battle.
The 2007 world champion, who is second in the overall standings with ten points behind Sebastian Vettl, added that it will be crucial to keep updating the E21 all the time after the first major upgrade is used in Spain.
"Of course, the start is good and we are in a better position compared to last year, but the season is still long and it is too early to assess whether we can fight for the title until the end," said Raikkonen, who was among the points winners. in the last 22 races. “It will be difficult to catch Sebastian if he achieves good results all the time, so we have to start stealing points from him. But no one knows what else can happen. We will continue to work to improve the car, and then we will see where we end the season. ”
Asked what the team needs to do later in the season, he replied in his own style: “Win more times! We need to catch the leaders and for that we will have to work twice as hard as they do. It’s no secret that you’d like to get more speed out of the race car in qualifying. It’s very even at the top and if we want to fight for wins, we have to be somewhere in the top two rows.
It is nice that we are starting the European part of the season where we are, as the teams are starting to install many novelties on their cars here. It’s still early, but it’s definitely better that we’ve scored a lot of points since the start of the season than not having those points. We have to keep collecting points like this, even if we have a bad racing weekend ahead of us, we have to finish as high as possible. That way we will fight until the end of the season, ”added Raikkonen, who won this year’s inaugural race in Australia and then added a few more points in Sepang before finishing in second place in China and Bahrain.
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