Raikkonen Hopeful of First Win of 2004

Kimi Raikkonen is hopeful of taking McLaren-Mercedes' first win of the season in this weekend's Hungarian Grand Prix after setting the fastest time of the day in second practice at the Hungaroring on Friday.

Raikkonen outpaced Michael Schumacher's Ferrari by 0.125 seconds after the Finn set a time of 1:20.884 in McLaren's new MP4-19B machine. Although Raikkonen insists that the outcome of the race could come down to strategy, he insisted that he now has a car good enough to beat Ferrari.

"I was really only trying to choose the right tyres for tomorrow," said Raikkonen "It's only Friday and we'll see what happens tomorrow but for sure it's better being in first place than anywhere else. I'm sure there are still improvements to make but overall, for the first day, it was quite good.

"We'll just try to do our best and hopefully keep this speed. Hopefully we can win this year. I think the last race we had the speed but unfortunately we didn't finish the race.

"I think the car has the speed in the races as long as we get everything right - if we get the set-up right we can challenge for first place. We will do what we think is the best strategy and hopefully we will be right."

Schumacher's time put him ahead of third-placed Colombian driver Juan Pablo Montoya, with the second McLaren of David Coulthard in fourth.