A grim-faced Kimi Raikkonen admitted that despite having the speed in his Ferrari, the nature of Interlagos is such that it is extremely difficult to overtake and therefore it got boring for him during the Brazilian Grand Prix as he held station for 71 laps to claim the final spot on the podium.
“I took it easy in the beginning and I was still catching up the guys at the front but I felt I took care of my tyres and once I pushed I could get close but you can’t really do anything,” explained Raikkonen after the race.
“Unfortunately the cars this year in this kind of place they can be very difficult to pass and it gets a bit boring unfortunately. I thought that I had a lot of speed but there was nothing that I could have done. I stayed around the same distance from Valtteri. It was a good end but I wanted more.”
It was a lonely race for Raikkonen on his way to third place on the day, the only spot of bother was late in proceedings with Lewis Hamilton storming from the back of the field to loom large in the Ferrari driver’s mirrors.
He recalled, “I didn’t really look at what he was doing I was trying to do my own stuff. I had a few lock ups in the first corner basically for no real reason but I was checking on Hamilton from the mirrors as it is hard to see when you are spread out and you can lose sight of them.”
“I had a very good last few corners and I could see when we pulled out of the last corner that he was quite far away.
“I know [Mercedes] are very fast when they put the full power and full engine with DRS they can catch up a lot at the end of the straight but I was quite comfortable [ahead]. I had a good gap in the last three corners.”
“I was surprised that he got closer to me in the last few laps and that is why I locked up a few times at turn one as I was looking too much in the mirrors and not braking so heavy so locked a little bit,” added Raikkonen.
The Finn could finish fourth in the F1 World Championship if he outscores Red Bull’s Daniel Ricciardo by eight points at the season finale in Abu Dhabi.