Raikkonen: Australian GP win was “not too difficult”

2013 Australian Grand Prix

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Kimi Raikkonen said his season-opening win at Melbourne was “not too difficult”.

“I had a good feeling on Friday already we just had the best set-up in that time,” he said after the race.

“I knew that the rears should be OK once we get the front from last season. We made some changes, I was expecting that the tyres should be pretty OK but of course you never know what the other teams would do. In the first race you always have doubts about how many laps you can do on a set of tyres.”

Raikkonen said it was “the best way” to begin the new season. “But like I sad we were pretty happy with the car in Barcelona, once we came here we seem to improve the car, it’s been pretty good all weekend.”

“It was a bit disappointing to only qualify seventh but with the conditions out there it wasn’t easy. I knew if I made it through the first lap with a pretty good position we should give ourselves a good chance for fighting on the podium and it turned out to be no too difficult.”

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    Keith Collantine
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    41 comments on “Raikkonen: Australian GP win was “not too difficult””

    1. Roland Langford (@)
      17th March 2013, 8:51

      Classic Kimi!

      1. I don’t understand how everything that ever comes out of this guy’s mouth is suppose to be vintage, one way or another.

        I bet that if Hamilton or Alonso made this comment, they’d be labelled as arrogant. But it’s OK as long as Kimi says it.

        1. Pretty much, people seem to make allowances for Kimi for some unknown reason.

          1. he’s a man from the big woods, you just got to give him some leaway when he meets civilisation

            1. leeway that is

        2. By classic I’m sure they mean typical- which it is. I don’t see anything wrong with it, he’s just very straight-talking and therefore always provides quotes that sound a bit devoid of caring.

        3. Whilst I don’t get the vintage Kimi, like Boullier said he seems to be trying even harder than last season to sound nice to the press even though, in true honestly all we want is transparency. I don’t understand where he did sound arrogant, the race was indeed pretty easy for him, the team managed to avoid traffic and maximized their package, they were right everyone else needs to rethink their team for Malaysia.

        4. It’s because here he’s clearly stating fact. He doesn’t stretch the credibility of what he’s saying, which is what sometimes pushes a confident comment into arrogance.

        5. You call him Kimi instead of Raikkonen, that makes him a character, a hero. That allows him to get sympathy for everything..every words. Always remember when he was burning on fire because of fuel spill, or lost his lead because oil spill from someone else, and he didn’t even blame others.

        6. KingShark, don’t be hatin’… he just LeWon in LaGreat style without breaking LaSweat!

        7. vuelve kowalsky
          17th March 2013, 14:32

          well, he earned respect from the fans, not being political in a f1 full of automatas. He is a very popular winner.

        8. It’s because he manages to such things without seeming arrogant but simply honest. You understand it from the way he says.
          Also usually most drivers say that it was hard even when they win easily from the frond with some distance(see Vettel 2011 and Schumi never saying it was easy but always hard).
          Kimi just doesn’t care in trying to appear that he supposedly worked very hard to win something, he just says what happened.

    2. “you did the fastest lap of the race at the end…”

      “i was still taking it easy”

      this guy is great :D

    3. Readng the comments on this article is going to be interesting…

      1. what comments? Somebody actually comments this stuff? Gee…

        1. @breza Kimi is a polarising figure, you love him or you hate him. When he makes comments like this it sometimes rubs people up the wrong way. That’s all I was getting at.

          1. Well, let me explain; if you love him or hate him that’s up to you, not him. He was always fair, never complained about the teams he was in (even when he had all the reasons to complain – just remember Mclaren And Ferrari), never complained about any driver on the grid… he just does what he does. Never political, always honest. Can you say that for any other driver/sportsman today? If he rubs someone the wrong way, they probably deserve just that.

    4. David not Coulthard (@)
      17th March 2013, 9:05

      But like I sad…

      said ?

    5. It doesn’t matter how good your car in practice or over a single lap of qualifying. All that matters is how quick your car is over 300km on Sunday.

      Considering that the race today was a pure sprint and wasn’t interrupted by Safety Cars or incidents or rain, I think that shows just how genuinely strong the Lotus is right now.

      1. well. they certainly sacrifised qualifying pace for that.

        And romain just strangely struggling. Knew kimi was very economical on his throttle and smooth driving also easy on front tyre, all those just enhance the car’s characteristic.

        1. Apparently, Romain didn’t start the weekend with the same upgrades as Kimi. When he got them on Saturday, he only had minimal time to try them out and set the car up with them, which would partly explain why he was off the pace of Kimi.

          1. LOL, that’s just plain excuses coming from Ted ‘s reasoning.

            Kimi didn’t had new FW until Sat.

            Both of them test different new parts.

            And mind you, kimi nvr did any race simulation unlike Romain. LOL On sat, romain said his setup is perfect, so i guess he might be too rough on those tyres.

            1. i mean during winter testing on race simulation part*

            2. I think we must wait for BBC, Ted’s acting up again only thing he seems to be good at is moaning, false premises and gossip, the SKY people need Gary Anderson and all he brings, guess we must wait till the highlights to understand what really happened.

            3. Kimi had the parts for the whole of Friday Manished, because Lotus was not able to bring them to Australia for both cars sooner, Grosjean got his only on Friday evening to be put on the car for Saturday.

      2. keeping under that radar without any big boasting up front, but confidently in there.

        Fast car, good strategy and voila, there they are. Now get Grosjean the new bits earlier than Friday evening and he can back that up and give them a role in both championships! He did finish the race, so that is an improvement on his form at last years Australia!

    6. Despite the 2 stops strategy, Kimi looked after his tires extremely well.
      When the gap between him and Fernando came down to 6 secs he had the ability to stabilize it and then increase it even more.
      Judging by the reaction of the car at dry conditions and the race pace of Lotus, E21 is a much better version of E20. However, in terms of qualifying, they are the same. Mediocre.

      1. yea……they need to start strong. Ferrari is not far off in tyre management.

    7. Lotus, Ferrari, Red Bull…….no more RB dominance! Hope so.

      The race matters the most at the end of the day. It’s a great start to the season with so many overtakes which was not like the beginning when Pirelli came back. Hope Sepang will be real hot in track temperatures than we’ll know how close the teams will be.

    8. yeh kimi , cant be that hard can it when your car is ridiculous like last year , honestly these tyre’s do me in I like to see it not dominated by who looks after tyre’s better , last year you cant honestly tell me the lotus or sauber were 1 of the real quick teams. Im well aware tyre’s are apart of f1 but not when the pirreli tyre’s are so bad for everyone else yet it’s one team that cracks them.

    9. worth noting that, kimi did the same stuff in hungary by setting fastest lap on worn out tyre while the rest pitted for fresh tyre couldn’t.

      Sure the car is good on tyre, however kimi just magnify the advantage.

      Hope they can get qualifying pace sorted to ease their way to podiums or even more wins.

    10. Are those who bag Kimi now going to eat their words? Or maybe just make excuses that he was favoured? Great drive, great tyre management, deserved win!

    11. If we ever needed reminding that Kimi never left this was it, awesome performance. He looked so controlled, and although it was a little worrying when Alonso began to close him down he was cruising it. No Red Bull domination but Kimi may just fill that gap!

    12. He is the iceman and he is allowed to say whatever he wants. His English aint that good hence, we accept what he says with a sense of humour

    13. Anybody seen Lewis The Great fans? Guys, proof of life please, we are a bit worried…

      1. @breza I don’t miss them. :)

      2. What to you mean? Lewis did just fine. Merc didn’t have much race pace compare to their qualifying(typical problem for them if you look at 2012) but he got a nice solid resold in top 5.
        It couldn’t be much better than that. Why would Lewis fans wanna hide?

    14. 100% true. Looking at how the others behind Kimi fought for position, it realy seams easy. He is just sencire and that makes him cool.

    15. just a ride in the park for him it seems

    16. Of course it was not too difficult for him, leave him alone, he knows what he’s doing.

    17. A Honest man after a day’s work. No politics. No threads attached !!!!

      Good one Kimi. Call the spade a spade :)

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