Ferrari bosses Sergio Marchionne and Maurizio Arrivabene slammed Kimi Raikkonen in the aftermath of a troubled Chinese Grand Prix for the team’s last Formula 1 World Champion. Report here>>>
And Raikkonen, a veteran of 254 grand prix starts, admits that he needs to raise his game, starting in Bahrain this weekend, ahead of two below par races for him.
Speaking after finishing fifth in Shanghai, “It is always painful when you don’t have a good result. I have been in the sport long enough and it’s not very often that [we are] all smiling and happy.”
“It’s a part of the job. It’s frustrating. But I know what we need and we have a very clear picture of what we want to do.”
“The not running on Friday was a bit of bad timing, but that’s how it goes. I am confident that we can get where we want to be.
“We need to start scoring bigger points to stay in the fight, but it’s going to be a long year. It’s disappointing to finish fifth, but I’ll take those points and hopefully be in a better position next race.”
Some have questioned Ferrari tactics to keep Raikkonen out for so long, before pitting him for a final time.
Raikkonen reflected, “Obviously it’s not great to not get past [Ricciardo] but we struggled a bit to really try to pass. A lot of small things could have come better, and the result could have been a lot better, but this is how it was.
“I’m not very happy about it and it’s racing and there’s still many races to go. We have certain things to improve.”
“It was better here than it was last race, but the result shows we still have improvements to make in the setup, but I think we know what we want to do.
“The situation with the no running on Friday didn’t make it any easier. There’s a lot of potential but we just have to make a better job,” added Raikkonen who won Ferrari’s last drivers’ title back in 2007