Brazilian GP: Raikkonen Turns Comedian

During the pre-race press conference, Kimi Raikkonen was one of the interviewees. Along with him were Esteban Ocon and Brendon Hartley. Since it was the Brazilian GP, Felipe Massa soon became a subject of discussion. The question, among others, was pitched to the Finn. In typical Kimi fashion, he bluntly answered.

The first question to Raikkonen was about his favourite Brazilian GP memories. One would normally expect him to talk about winning the championship in 2007. Kimi being Kimi said, “It’s a long time ago. Obviously it was a great day but it wasn’t just about the day, it was the whole year. It ended on that day but there were some great moments, some not very nice moments but in the end it worked out OK and I was very happy with it but – I don’t know – I haven’t really thought about it too much; obviously after that, yes, but not for a while because it doesn’t really change my life today, thinking about it. I don’t really try and make a big story out of it.”

The next question was about Felipe Massa’s announcement that he was retiring. Raikkonen said “He’s retiring again, so let’s see if it actually happens or we will see him in the first race next year. I always had a good relationship with him, great atmosphere when we were at Ferrari together. We won two championships for the team as teammates and I think it was a great time. Obviously it was very fast, very good but I wish him all the best if he ends up (not) racing in F1 anymore. We will see what comes in his life in the future.”

Finally he had to summarise his season. He said, “I think it’s very simple that we are in the championship, that’s how good or bad it’s been. That’s how it is this year and obviously we need to learn and make better things next year but we all start from zero next year and it depends on many things over the winter and over the testing at the beginning of the year. We will then get some idea of where we are going to be and then we see in the first races what will happen, but obviously the aim is to do better, to fight for wins and championships – that’s, as a team, what we want to do and as a driver I want to do that. This year, for sure, in many ways could have been better but I guess it can always be worse also.”

In other words, it was a set of typical Kimi Raikkonen responses.