Q & A with Kimi Raikkonen

Kimi Raikkonen: Well, it looks like they have one more day of holiday! They have a different system in their meetings; I know exactly what they are doing there.

We have a system (at Ferrari) where everybody is there together but I know from the past that you can have a meeting with your own people - and it is not as detailed as what we have now. For sure it doesn't help the team, but I don't know if it going to hurt. But it doesn't make anyone's life easier there.

Q. How important for your championship hopes is it to get a good result here this weekend and close the gap to McLaren?

KR: Yeah, it is very important. That is what we have been trying to do every race, the last race also, but it was quite a difficult circuit for us. At least we only dropped two points. I wanted to win and gain two points rather than lose, but it wasn't possible. Hopefully here it should be better for our car so we can really push.

Q. Are you still optimistic for the championship?

KR: I haven't given up. For sure it is going to be difficult, but we have been in the same position before - so it is not a new thing. But one bad race for either of us is going to change a lot. We just keep pushing and we push as long as we can. We just try to win races.

Q. Do you believe that Fernando or Lewis are your main target for the championship?

KR: Lewis is right now further away, so is harder to catch. But we need to try to catch both of them and that is what we try to do.

Q. Ferrari president Luca di Montezemolo said Ferrari would try and win six races, but he did not speak about you or Felipe Massa. Do you think it is dangerous to do it without exact rules between drivers?

KR: It has been like that all year. It has been in my past years like that. It is up to the drivers and our engineers. Whoever is quicker is going to have the better chance. It is difficult to put one guy ahead of another. I think Ferrari are only interested in one of us winning and hopefully we can have a 1-2. That is what we are aiming for.

Q. Monza has similar characteristics to Montreal and Indy. Do you think it could be one of the worst Grands Prix for you? What are the differences between the North American races and Monza?

KR: I think the only problem that we can probably have in Monza is through kerbs. Maybe it hasn't been our strongest point going over the kerbs, and trying to get the traction back.

But I know from the past that Ferrari were always very strong in their home race. We improved for the last race the car handling over the bumps so we should be okay there.

Q. Some people are talking about the possibility of Fernando Alonso at Ferrari. What do you think about that?

KR: I haven't heard anything about that. You need to ask the team.

Q. Ron Dennis revealed to the press in Hungary that McLaren have a definitive policy about which driver per race is allowed to go for the extra lap in Q3. What is the Ferrari situation, and do you think it is necessary to make that decision?

KR: For sure it helps if you can do an extra lap, but we have some rules about who is going to get it. It depends on many other things, so it is not so clear. It is not like we can decide it before qualifying.

For sure usually we try to do it with whoever has the better chance. Like we saw we thought it would be difficult to get it at the last race but even with all the things that happened there we were able to get it.

It is really very difficult to say, you have it this time and I'll have it next time, because anything can happen. You might miss it, and for sure there is a chance to have both of the cars make the extra lap.