Ferrari’s Kimi Raikkonen says he is free to fight for a race win and compete against teammate Sebastian Vettel as long as they do not collide with each other.
The Iceman took his first pole of the season at Ferrari’s home race.
Vettel is currently number two in the driver’s standings and has a 68 point lead over the Finn. But, he is the only real title challenger to Lewis Hamil ton this season.
The Italian outfit is known to use a race strategy that typically favours Vettel and uses Raikkonen as a catalyst and a safeguard. The German has won all 13 races since the time the duo have been teammates.
When asked if he will be permitted to fight with Vettel in the first corner in the Italian grand prix, Raikkonen said: “We can race each other but we obviously have to be careful with each other, but I don’t see how it changes anything,”
“I don’t think anybody wants purposely to take a stupid amount of risk and damage somebody else’s car and yours too at the same time.”
A Ferrari car will start from the pole position at Monza for the first time after 2010. In spite of all the celebrations and crowd cheer for the home team, Raikkonen believes it is just another pole.
“I’ve been on pole 17 times before and it’s a similar story. For sure it’s a special place to get pole position in our home Grand Prix, in front of our fans. But it’s not any different from the other ones. It’s good today, hopefully, tomorrow is another good day.”
My backside.
Yes right. Come last lap if Kimi leading and Seb 2nd, tell Kimi to move over