Raikkonen eyes victory challenge

The winner of this year's Belgian Grand Prix declared himself happy with the set-up of his MP4-19B and, despite a spin which was blamed on a bad set of tyres, he thinks that he has the pace to gun for another victory on Sunday.

"I was quite pleased with the set-up of the car from the very beginning, which always makes Friday's practice much more productive," said Raikkonen, who was third quickest overall. "I had one set of tyres which were not too good and that was one of the reasons why I had a little spin at the start of the second session at Turn Eight.

"It's going to be an interesting weekend, but it's important to make a perfect lap in qualifying, as we are all so close. There is no doubt that Ferrari will be strong here, but I believe we will be able to battle with them."

David Coulthard had a more frustrating day, ending second practice a lowly 15th, but claimed that his only problem was coming across traffic on his quick laps.

The Scotsman said: "We went through our tyre evaluation programme, but unfortunately I couldn't show the full potential of the car as I got stuck in traffic which is often the case on this short circuit - on my fast lap I had to overtake three cars."