Kimi Raikkonen Q&A

After his impressive second place in last year's World Championship many people expect Kimi Raikkonen to use the knowledge he gained and go one better this year. However despite the new car being out before anything else McLaren has appeared to be in trouble of late, in terms of both performance and reliability. Testing doesn't always provide all the answers, so Melbourne will be the first time that we get an indication of where the team really stands. Is Raikkonen still in the hunt? Adam Cooper talked exclusively with Kimi on Thursday in Melbourne.

"It was OK! I haven't done much, just seeing my friends and family. Normal stuff."

"It's always good to get as much mileage as you can for a new car. It should help, and I think we are in good shape now. Hopefully we'll be winning."

"I think so. We will see this weekend if it will really make a difference or not. But I think we are more ready than we would have been than the other way round."

"You are always have little ideas about what the other teams are doing, but you cannot be 100% sure. We will see in the next few days who will be the best team and who's not. But every year it's the same. Some of the small teams or less successful teams go quickly suddenly in one test and then everybody's expecting that they are doing well. There are so many things that you can do to make the car go quickly, but like I said, we'll see in the next few days."

"I don't know! I have no idea. We only know what we are doing ourselves, and I think we are quite happy. Of course you always want to improve the whole package, in all areas. I hope we are strong and the other teams will have to catch up with us."

"It's good to get back in racing, but I think after last year because we came second and we did quite well it 's normal that the people are expecting us to do better. And we ourselves are expecting to do better, and as always try to win the World Championship. It's not always so easy. It's a long season, with many races, and you can only keep pushing as hard as you can. And hopefully we're strong enough."

"You want to win races, and the way that we did it last year was the only way that we could do it. Some races we didn't have the speed to win the races, and we scored as many points as we could. It's not enough. You need to try to win more races and you need to be reliable, but also quick, to challenge for victories, and that's the way to win it."

"Yes, I think so. You have more experience, and that always helps, but I don't think anything else has changed."

"It's the same for everybody, and from a driving point of view it doesn't really change much. It's more for the engine manufacturers."

"I don't know what the plan is, because it's the first race and I haven't discussed with the team what we are able to do on Fridays and what we can't. We need to make the tyre choice on Friday, so I'm sure we will do some running."

"It's the same for all the drivers, and I don't think it's really changed a lot from last year. It's only that they are on the same day, so we'll see."

"Yes, but when you're pushing as hard as you can sometimes you do mistakes and it's going to cost you more. But that's life, and we'll see how it goes."