It was somehow appropriate that the first win of Kimi Raikkonen’s comeback season with Lotus came on the third anniversary of his final race for Ferrari in 2009.
Raikkonen jumped ahead of Pastor Maldonado and Mark Webber at the start, and gained the lead when Lewis Hamilton stopped on lap 20. The Finn holds a solid third place in the World Championship with two races to go.
“I’m very happy for the team,” said Raikkonen. “We have had hard times lately, and hopefully it gives some belief for the people.
“For everybody, hopefully it gives a bit more support and hope that things will turn around and be even better than it’s been this year. So, great thing for the team itself, for the guys and, I mean of course I’m happy myself, but if I win it’s great, if I don’t I will try again and it’s not the end of the life.
“We’ve been close few times but now I said that even the last race I think we had the speed to even win the race, but if you don’t start in the front, we see what can happen.
“We knew the start would be a really big key, and I got a really good start so I think with the McLaren we didn’t have the speed, at least in the beginning of the race – but then we have to finish the race to win. I mean after that we were pretty good. Just the safety cars made us a little bit trickier today.”
Kimi said the good start was crucial to his race.
“I think we’ve had some very good starts before, but compared to the others, today was a pretty normal start on our scale. I managed to pass Mark and Maldonado before I changed into second gear.
“I’d had a very good start on the warm-up lap so I knew this was going to be good. That was our aim, to try to make a good start and we managed to do it, so it was key for our win today.”
Regarding recent exhaust updates he said: “It brings some pace, helps our straight line speed. So in average we gain some advantage but it’s exactly the same car we have in Korea. So we see how much even this year in all the races some circuits suits better for one team and the next one is not so good for you.
“We had good speed last race as I’ve already said. We made some mistakes in qualifying and paid the price in the race. So now we put all together like we should have done quite a few times this year but for one reason or another we haven’t. But at least we’ve got one win so we’ll keep try to push still and see what we can do in the next race.”
Adam Cooper F1 
I’m more a fan of his “what’s in a name” tirade: Lotus – “it’s a name. It’s the same team and it has been since Fernando was there. It’s a great name for us, good past but you know I race for the team whatever the name is, I don’t really care. Maybe it looks good in somebody’s eyes but for me it really makes no difference.”
I’m sure corporate wigs from Glotus are happy, migthy Lotuseers are probably happy too, in a way. If he told more a less the same thing to Monty Zemolo during his Ferrari days… Now I can see why St Luca is not a Kimifan69.
DC was amazing beyond belief: ” People want to know how amazing it is to win a grand prix. Tell us.”
Awesome race, boom, innit.
And of course, as I have exclusively predicted, exclusively here, Iceman is ze winner. All those years of massive mighty punditry have finally paid off for me. I’m ‘appy. themightyf1pundit.com is on the cards now.
Iceman for the win the next time too!
Can some-one tell DC that white pants and pink shirts are ….. OUT 🙂 ?