Q & A with Kimi Raikkonen

Kimi Raikkonen: It is difficult to say always before the weekend. But hopefully we can have as good a race as we had in the first race, and we will see how it starts going tomorrow. But the test was good for us, so I think we can expect to have a strong race.

Q. Do you know already if you have to change the engine, and are you afraid of this?

KR: No. We will make the decision tomorrow or Saturday so I don't know.

Q. How difficult is it from the driver's point of view to cope with the heat?

KR: It is difficult, more difficult than most of the other races. But in the end it is not too bad when you drive. It is when you stop that the heat really hits you. It should be okay.

Q. About the new floor rules, Fernando Alonso said the important thing is that it is the same for everybody. What do you think?

KR: Our car has been legal all the time, and now they have said it will be different so it will be different. There is no reason to think about that. I think the FIA decided to change the rules, but I don't think it is going to affect us at all.

Q. The decision to change the engine will be made by the team, but what is your preference?

KR: Like I said before, the decision will be made tomorrow or Saturday. So until that we will wait and see what happens. We will make the decision as a team.

Q. Does it depend on the weather conditions as well?

KR: No, it is not going to change whether we need to change or not change it.

Q. Fernando believes that Ferrari are unbeatable here on pure pace. Would you agree with that?

KR: I don't know, because anything can happen. If you have a small problem in the race then it can turn around, but I think we have a good speed, a good test and hopefully we are as strong as we were in the last race.

Q. Kimi your first win was here in 2003. What do you remember about that?

KR: It was good. The first victory is always nice but it is not going to change anything for this year. It was nice to see we had a pretty strong here and the race is always a different matter. Let's wait and see how it goes but I have good memories from here.

Q. Are you worried about the engine change?

KR: There is no point to be worried about it because if it needs to be changed then it needs to be changed. There is nothing we can do. We make the decision later.

Q. Is your teammate going to be a threat this weekend if he doesn't have any problems?

KR: We will see. For sure it will be a close fight but you never know.

Q. This is a track where you can overtake quite easily, so does that make you less worried about changing the engine?

KR: No. I don't worry about that because we don't know what the deal is. If we need to change then we need to make a new plan, but we wait until we know exactly what we are going to do.

Q. Do you think you will have the same advantage over McLaren here that you had in Australia?

KR: Like I said, it is very difficult to say from testing. You get a kind of idea. We seemed to be strong in testing, but then the race weekend is always different. We will wait and see.

Q. What does the new tattoo mean?

KR: Nothing. Nothing.

Q. Is it permanent?

KR: I don't know. You will see later what happens.

Q. Some people say Ferrari have an advantage because of the Bridgestone tyres. What do you say about that?

KR: I don't think that is going to explain why we were better than the rest in the first race. The other teams were saying that the Ferrari were not doing so well in the winter, that our car is wrong, it has too long a wheelbase, but the other teams had enough time to work with the tyres. We have a good overall package and that is the main thing.

Q. How did you celebrate your first Ferrari win?

KR: That is nothing to do with this (press conference).