Fourth podium made Räikkönen smile

Fourth podium made Räikkönen smile 

Turun Sanomat 23.7.2012 

Kimi Räikkönen achieved his F1-career's 66th podium in Germany GP. For the first time he got up on the podium without being able to celebrate the result. 

Räikkönen started from the 10th grid and finished as 4th. Because Sebastian Vettel overtook Jenson Button outside the track, the judges gave him a 20-second penalty.. 

Because of that Räikkönen got his 4th trophy in the season and three extra WC-points. And a good mood although he didn't want to admit it ..... 

Räikkönen took his first podium in Bahrain where he climbed up from 11th to 2nd - and was for a moment lurking for the leading position when challenging Vettel. 

Now he climbed up in an almost similar manner, but Räikkönen didn't fight for the victory at any point in this race. 

– The competition is now much more even than it was in Bahrain. The car had a good speed in the race. The drive was the same as the top 3's was, but I was so hopelessly far away that it didn't give me any joy, Räikkönen figured. 

The weather in qualification served a bitter cup of sorrow to the whole Lotus-camp. The car that was able to take the pole in dry weather lost all grip and was unarmed in qualification. 

– Hopefully we get the setups right in the future so that we can start to fight for leading positions. Now we didn't get anywhere in the rain. I could have had good chances to drive for victory had the starting grid been a little more closer to the lead. 

– At least we did our best. I was left with a feeling that we couldn't have achieved more from these starting positions. It was again just a race among other races. 

Race by race until autumn 

Räikkönen is driving for the championship, but they are still proceeding from observing positions when the season is halfway. 

– Just like always I concentrate on each race at the time. I try to get the best possible result and we will see in the autumn how we are positioned. With the current point-system it doesn't take more than a couple of bad results for the situations to change quickly, Räikkönen thinks. 

Räikkönen got a good start but lost two positions when Lewis Hamilton had difficulties on the first laps and Lotus had to slow down when coming to the first corner in order to avoid hitting McLaren's rear. 

– At that point Force India's Paul di Resta got so close that he went past in the DRS-area. After that it took a few laps to get back the positions, Räikkönen summed up. 

Overtaking di Resta, Nico Hülkenberg and Michael Schumacher gave better positions but he couldn't go up from 4th, because Button had already escaped from him. 

– It was just difficult to overtake although the car would have had speed. When I finally got to drive in clean air the difference grew quite quickly. It was a shame to once again be stuck in the traffic for such a long time. Without that the result could have been a little better. 

Pastor Maldonado slowed Räikkönen down for his time and according to the team he lost about 3 seconds there, however it didn't matter in the endresult. 

Hamilton had to retire in his 100th GP-race and Räikkönen was able to go past him in WDC-points and get up 4th in that serie. Vettel who is 3rd is 12 points ahead of Räikkönen. 

Grosjean's 6th dent 

Since Romain Grosjean drove his clearly weakest finished race this season, Räikkönen's points weren't enough to keep Lotus 3rd in WCC-points: McLaren went past them with one point. 

Grosjean spinned in his 6th race out of 10 right away on the first lap and had to go to the pitstop with broken wings. 

Turun Sanomat, Hockenheim 

HEIKKI KULTA

Fonte: Turun Sanomat / Tradução para o Inglês: Nicole

Boa análise de Kimi sobre seu fim de semana germânico.

E como Kulta destaca, o ponto negativo na Alemanha foi que a Lotus perdeu a terceira posição para a McLaren no Mundial de Construtores. Mas acho que a luta entre estes dois times para saber quem será a terceira força do Mundial será boa até o final da temporada.

Beijinhos, Ludy