Raikkonen bids to re-ignite title charge
Raikkonen, third quickest in second practice yesterday, has seen a seven-point lead disintegrate into a seven-point deficit in the space of two races after trailing home ninth in Monaco and failing to finish in Montreal.
The Finn’s accident in Monte Carlo was all of his own making as he lost control of his Ferrari late in the race before ploughing into Adrian Sutil’s Force India, sending him out of the points. A fortnight later, Raikkonen was the innocent party as McLaren’s Lewis Hamilton drove into the back of his parked car in the pit lane.
After finding himself the hunted in Monaco, Raikkonen is now the hunter as he chases down BMW Sauber’s Robert Kubica, Hamilton and teammate Felipe Massa heading into tomorrow’s French Grand Prix.
“It definitely looked better for me before the last two races, but there’s a long way to go,” assessed Raikkonen.
“The points gap is pretty small between all the guys at the front.
“As long as we start getting where we should be in the races, we can easily come back, but we can’t afford to drop back more than we are now.
“We will see what happens now, but there are many races to go, so nothing lost or gained. I’m not too worried.”
The 28-year-old is confident of avoiding a run of three successive races without picking up points, an unwanted feat he last achieved four years ago.
“We are definitely going to score points, if we can just get the car to the finish,” said a hopeful Raikkonen.
“We’re obviously here to try to win the race. Hopefully we can manage to do that, and that would help a lot.”
In seven seasons at Magny-Cours, Raikkonen has always finished in the points, claiming victory for the first time last year, a win that propelled him on the road to becoming champion.
“It’s a good circuit, not the easiest to overtake, but overall I quite enjoy it here,” added Raikkonen. “Last year we started to get things going right and hopefully it’ll be the same this year.”
Meanwhile Fernando Alonso has vowed to put on a show in Magny-Cours, and delivered in the second practice session for tomorrow’s Grand Prix. On home soil for a Renault team that has underperformed this season, Alonso topped the timesheets with the second quickest time of the day.
Only Ferrari’s Felipe Massa was faster, that in the morning 90-minute period when the Brazilian posted a time quicker than the record race lap set by Michael Schumacher in 2004.
Alonso had ended the morning in ignominious fashion, trundling off the Circuit de Nevers with a blown engine that fortunately on a Friday does not result in a penalty.
In the intervening 150 minutes, Alonso’s mechanics ensured the two-time world champion returned to the track with a car to give the team’s fans something to cheer.
Throwing his Renault around the 4.411km track, Alonso ultimately set a lap of one minute 15.778secs, just over 0.4secs adrift of Massa’s morning best.
Massa was second quickest in the afternoon with a lap of 1:15.854, avoiding a scare late when he ran wide into the gravel, just missing a wall on exit.
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