Eurosport - Wed, 20 Aug 15:33:00 2008
Ferrari's reigning champion Kimi Raikkonen has said he should not be written out of the World Championship battle just yet as Formula One heads into the final seven races of the season.
Former world champion Niki Lauda - who won two titles with the Scuderia and one with McLaren - had suggested that the Finn was not a contender for the 2008 crown, despite his second position in the drivers' standings.
Raikkonen indicated that he believes he is close enough to points leader Lewis Hamilton of McLaren to launch a title assault. He is only five points adrift but his form is suffering whereas the Briton is performing well.
Raikkonen's team-mate Felipe Massa lies third, three points behind the Finn.
"We haven't lost anything yet, but we need to get consistently better results," Raikkonen said. "I think the championship will be very tight, with Ferrari and McLaren very close together in terms of performance and three drivers in a position to win the title.
"I need to have at least one point more than my competitors after the last race of the season - this is the sole aim. The rest is [simply] details."
He acknowledged that he has to hit top form to pip Hamilton again in 2008.
"From now on every single race will be extremely important," he said. "Every single point will have great value. The less there are to be won, the more important they become.
"This season shows that you should never give up. There were some races where things didn't go well for us but, for one reason or another, I was able to collect precious points.
"My position after Hungary is better than before the race."
Raikonnen added that he was looking forward to racing at the new Valencia street circuit.
"We have to start well at Valencia, where it's more important than in other places to drive with continuity from Friday onwards," he said.
"I've only seen the new track from the position of an on-board camera, but it seems to be very fast for a street circuit.
"I always love to drive on new tracks and I am always very quick to get to know them, so I can't wait to race at Valencia.
"I just hope I'll have a trouble-free weekend to try to set the car up in the best way possible, especially for the qualifying lap.
"Qualifying will be extremely important, although I think that there are several possibilities on the track to overtake."
Comment 19 - 38 of 38
Tsunami Sound.Your comment on that black people are 7 times more likely to be stopped by the Police than white: Sounds as though you have a very large chip on your shoulder . I suppose it's nothing to do with the fact that a majority of the stabbings, drive by shootings, drug possession etc are carried out by Black people in the UK.
got to agree with you there watermark.but its not the fault of the drivers giving the interviews. its the media that manipulate and take things out of contexts for what reason who knows.
This is what Yahoo is soooo excited to write about, haven't you noticed? It's not Lewis that gets discriminated against, it's Kimi and any driver that isn't British, or better yet, anyone that isn't Lewis, regardless of the race. You only get news about Kimi when it's negative, even Lewis's teammate Heikki gets few attention. Was it a big deal to Yahoo when Heikki won the race? No. It's still stories about Lewis and how he did well despite an unfortunate situation.
As an LH supporter id never write of Raikkonen off he was written off last season but came back to win.
Daniel,thats funny its fact that black people are 7 times more likely to be stopped by the law than white. try telling the cops colour don't matter!LOL :D
He better not be written off !!!
Kimi is going to have to start delivering a lot more than his borderline-comatose performances if he wants to start scoring title points in the first place.
Massa has been more focused and his overall results send a clear message that he wants to win this year's title like mad and his onslaught will not subside.
He has tasted the points-leadership and going forward, he'll be going for the proverbial "jugular". Kimmi can say and think anything he wants but Massa is the one who's behaving as a true contender for the title.
my comment regarding the color of the skin... just look beyond the skin for just a few millimeters deeper and you'll end up with the same color... plus look at the color of the blood... they're all the same...
i will still support kimi to win this season...
I am not a real big fan of Kimi's or Lewis, but I think that the facts are Kimi has been on the podium 6 time out of 11 races and Lewis 5. Face it they are both talented drivers, I just think we all want to be entertained by these guys on and off the track and when they dont perform we start to complain. Dont' we all wish we were as talented as they are on the track. I say cut them both some slack and just wish them luck and enjoy the coming races.
It doesn't matter if you're black, white, brown, green, blue or purple. As long as you can drive, no one gives a @#$% what your skin looks like.
Yea but come on guys,it going to up set people the black guy doing better than the white guys in a sport thats been controled by white people, a bit like what Obama doing. lol,
I don't think the world would not be 100% happy if F-1 became like the 100 meters sprint where the whole field is black. LOL!
The brothers seem to just have the speed & the moves,and as I've heard from many white women once you go black you never go back! LOL :-)
Times are changing you better believe it.
I am totally sick of Niki. Every year it's the same bloody thing. Kimi has a great chance and is a great driver.
May the best Driver and team win.
M
i believe that kimi still have the chance to retain his championship.i feel confident that kimi will have a very good race this weekend n he will top the standing again.kimi will always bounce back from his dissapoinment.we shall wait n see!!!
Couldnt have said it better joe, amen.
Well I agree with you there, racism and just overall nonsense comments that are NOT constructive, have no place, in Formula, in sport, and just the world in general. LH is black, so what! His skin color or anyone’s skin color shouldn’t be used as a detriment to who he is or a benefit to who he is. It should be the type of person that he is, on the inside.
When you look at the world as a whole, unfortunately there are quite a bit of ignorant people out there in this world in every country, in every language. When it comes down to it, it doesn’t matter the color of your skin, the gender, or creed that you practice, it’s the character of the person that you are.
LH is proven himself to be a great driver at this early stage of his F1 career, will he be one of the best? Who knows! Look at Jack Villeneuve won the championship in his second year, and went down hill.
So everyone reading this, no matter what team and driver you support (lets go Ferrari!!), lets stop the ignorant comments, there is just no place for them. All I can say is then next 7 races are going to be fantastic. Unless Ferrari collapse and LH pulls a Schumi/Senna/Mansel and just crushes the competition the rest of the season.
Enjoy the race this weekend everyone!
joe believe me in not knocking any driver i stand i ore of them all. right down the grid. and all the teams. i once drove a Ferrari round a race track got to 155 mph and @#$% myself. my point is the derogatory remarks posted on this site i used LH and Ferrari as an example the comments about alonso are just as bad i could go on all night. mrazz said we should be careful what we say well sorry but i don't think the people that post all the @#$% are botherd about being carfull
Look guys, it's easy to jump to conclusions when all that you see is written words. Honestly, as a huge Ferrari fan, I am ashamed of some these so-called Ferrari fans who take advantage of every opportunity to express their dumb, racist, sexist, boneheaded views. This goes for McLaren fans as well. Most people here are decent and intelligent, and we generally agree or disagree in a civilized manner. However, others use this forum to vent their frustrations and try to compensate for their pathetic, meaningless lives.
This is a direct response to "did i read it right. kimi said i need to have at least one more point than my competitors after the last race of the season. he is either a genius or he shouldnt be let near a even a pushbike. what an stupid statment"
bro, by kimi saying that is just his way of saying, “hey, the caliber of the drivers nowadays are great, the caliber of the cars now are great. So the margins will be slim. If you look from when Senna won his second championship in 1990 to last year, that’s 17 years (technically 18 championships), 13 of those years were won with double digit point leads. In ’02 Schumi won with 67 points more the second place, in ’92 Mansell had 52 point more then second place, Alonso had 21 points over second in ’05.
So don’t knock Kimi, because he’s a Ferrari driver, or cause hes soft spoken. We are in the post Schumi era right now, where the talent of the driver and the quality of the car are so close. As much as I miss Schumi, the championship is a lot more exciting without him kicking the @#$% out of everyone.
How great was the end of last season? I was on the edge of my seat the entire season, I thought Lewis had it locked up....Let's just see, no matter who you support if Lewis is able to hold on.
I didnt say you were black and if you want to know im brown, and im no racist either and i see where your coming from but you have to be a little more careful with your comments, i knew what you meant when you said what you did but there are others out there who would take it the wrong way. Some may be ferrari fans some may even be mclaren fans but that we dont know. but we should be more carefull, it is comments such as these when taken the wrong way that create bad people.
yes all THE meaning only THE vicious nasty racist
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