Raikkonen encouraged by result
Raikkonen thinks Ferrari are close to returning to their winning ways
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By Adam Leveridge. |  |
Sunday, 26, Jul 2009 03:42
By Adam Leveridge.
In the post-race press conference, Kimi Raikkonen said that he hopes to be able to continue Ferrari's strong pace for the rest of the season.
Ferrari have had a difficult weekend in Hungary, after Raikkonen's team-mate Felipe Massa was airlifted to hospital following being hit of the head by a piece of debris.
Massa had to undergo surgery to repair a fractured skull and is still recovering in intensive care of the AEK Hospital in Budapest.
Because of Massa's accident, Ferrari only entered Raikkonen in the Hungarian grand prix and the Finn managed to fight his way from seventh on the grid, to take a well-deserved second place.
Raikkonen said: "We got a very good start, which definitely helped. We knew before the race that we needed to gain some places at the start to be able to fight for the podium.
"I thought I had the speed to catch Lewis, but he would suddenly start to go at the same speed and then a little bit faster, so the gap stayed more or less the same all the time.
"Then I had some issues on the last pit stop that didn't help either, but we had a good race."
Raikkonen believes that today's result demonstrates that Ferrari are closer to returning to their winning ways than the team previously thought
"I know it's difficult to go for wins right now, but we're probably closer than we expected, " said Raikkonen.
"It hasn't been an easy weekend for the team, but we got a good result and hopefully we can keep going like this. It's something positive, at least, for the team this weekend."