Raikkonen Stays Cool, Hopes for Better Future

Formula One 'Iceman' Kimi Raikkonen is keeping his cool, even if McLaren's nightmare start to the season has seen his title hopes melt away.

"Of course it's disappointing when we have bad races," the Finn, last year's overall runner-up, said before Sunday's Canadian Grand Prix.

"But I think it doesn't help if you are shouting and throwing your helmet and kicking your stuff about because it's not going to change anything. People are different and some like to show it and some not and that's maybe my way," he told a news conference at the Gilles Villeneuve circuit.

This season has been a true test of character for the 24-year-old, who arrived in Montreal last year leading the Championship before Ferrari's Michael Schumacher forged ahead on his way to a sixth title. After staying in contention all the way to the 2003 Japanese finale, this was supposed to be Raikkonen's year.

Instead, McLaren have made their worst start to a season since team principal Ron Dennis took over in 1981 with Raikkonen scoring just one point after seven races to dominant Schumacher's 60.

But there is hope on the horizon, with the Mercedes-powered team hoping to introduce a heavily revised car in France next month after the back-to-back races in North America.

Raikkonen, who tested the 'new' chassis at Silverstone last week and would like it deployed as soon as possible, sounded confident that McLaren could salvage something.

"Hopefully once we get to Europe we can take it to the races but I think it all depends how quickly we can build all the spare parts," he said. "Hopefully with the 19B we can start fighting for podiums and also for wins.

Exploding Engines

The Finn has finished just two races so far, sidelined by exploding engines, but he refused to pile all the blame on Mercedes.

"You cannot just complain about the engine, it has been the whole package," said Raikkonen, who had been running as high as second at the last European Grand Prix at the Nurburgring before his engine let go.

"I think we seem to know the problems now and after the next few races we should be back to where we should have been already at the start of the year.

"I think they found the problems in those engines and hopefully this race we should not have any," he added. "But as you know in motor racing you always think you will not have problems but then sometimes they hit you."

Raikkonen said that the current car's rear-end instability made it hard to attack the corners with confidence. It was also heavier on the tyres.

"On all those areas the 19B seems to be better," said the Finn. "Okay, it is only one test at Silverstone so we don't really want to expect or say too much but definitely from the first laps already it felt a bit better. I'm pretty confident it will be quite a bit better."