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Finishing second is not enough - Raikkonen

ESPN Staff
July 29, 2013 « 2014 Indian GP under threat | Red Bull feeling the Mercedes threat »
Kimi Raikkonen: "Obviously we always hope for more, myself and the team hopes for more" © Sutton Images
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Kimi Raikkonen says he needs to improve in qualifying if he is to challenge for race wins and the championship this year.

Raikkonen finished second at the Hungarian Grand Prix on Sunday, closing the gap to Sebastian Vettel at the top of the championship by three points to a total of 38. However, with just one win to him name so far this season, Raikkonen said Lotus had to get back on the top step of the podium to stand a chance of beating the Red Bull driver.

"Obviously we always hope for more, myself and the team hopes for more," he said. "I think we've made progress, for sure. Now we have tyres that are a little bit different and I wasn't so happy with how things ran on Friday and yesterday - more happy in qualifying than the whole weekend before that but still not ideal and in the race we usually run better than in qualifying.

"I was happy with the car in the race but obviously when you start from such a bad starting place it's difficult to make big progress on this kind of circuit, but I managed to do two stops and we're still pretty competitive. We're happy how we've done but we're here to try to win races and if we keep finishing second and third like we've done many times this year, it's probably not enough for the championship. The best thing today when we finished second we gained a few points on Sebastian, so it's better than nothing but with a win it would have been a much bigger difference."

Asked if he would return to Lotus' factory ahead of the summer shut down this week, Raikkonen said: "I don't design the car so there's not much use for me there. Everybody has to be off work in a week's time so there's nothing happening at any of the factories, at least, that's how it should be. I will do something and see what happens at the next race in four weeks."

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