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Former world champion Kimi Raikkonen yesterday said he was saving his celebrations for the end of the year despite last week’s brilliant win in Australia. |
The Finn said that after winning Sunday’s season-opening race in Melbourne, he left the partying to his Lotus crew and flew straight to Kuala Lumpur ahead of this week’s Malaysian Grand Prix.
“I had a flight in the evening so we just had a quick meeting and I had to go to the hotel to pick up some stuff and go,” said Raikkonen, who is nicknamed “Iceman” and is renowned for his love of the high life.
“For sure they had some celebrations, it’s just one race—hopefully at the end of the year we can have a good celebration.”
Raikkonen also said Sunday’s win had not changed his preparations for this week’s race—and he denied he was seen as the man to beat at the tropical Sepang circuit near the Malaysian capital.
“There’s no target (on my back),” he said. “We’re not doing any different things this week from what we did previously.
“So whether people think we are the leaders makes no difference to how we work, what we’re going to do this weekend or any other weekend. We’ll try to do our best and hopefully we can score some good points.”
Scoring points has become second nature for Raikkonen, who has finished in the top 10 in his last 18 races and this week returns to the scene of his maiden victory in Formula One in 2003.
However, any thoughts of misty-eyed memories clouding his vision were quickly quashed by the 33-year-old double Sepang winner.
“It’s not really a special place for me, of course it was nice to win my first race on this circuit but we should have won before then,” added Raikkonen, who entered Formula One in 2001.
“It is nice to come back here, the circuit is nice and I know the conditions here well. It usually provides a good race and hopefully we can enjoy another good weekend.”
The Melbourne win was mainly down to Raikkonen’s ability to manage the rapidly degrading Pirelli tyres better than his rivals in unusually cold conditions, making the Malaysia race a bit of a step into the unknown due to its intense heat.
“Last year we were very good when the weather was hot but we haven’t been able to run in this car when the conditions have been intense,” he added.
“Winter training and Melbourne were cold so we have no idea, but if we are similar to last year we will be ok, we’ll have to wait and see.”
Raikkonen also played down concerns over the Lotus’s lethargic performance in qualifying at Melbourne after the Finn could only claim seventh on the starting grid, one place ahead of teammate Romain Grosjean.
“The qualifying was affected by the wet weather but in normal dry conditions I expect us to be a lot closer. So if the weather is dry here, I don’t expect us to be a second or whatever it was behind pole.