- Ferrari
Ferrari improving 'little by little' - Raikkonen
Kimi Raikkonen believes Ferrari is making small steps forward but is convinced the team is progressing slower than it should be because of how rarely he has problem-free weekends.
Raikkonen recorded a season-best finish of fourth in Spa-Francorchamps after a solid drive, with the Finn claiming it was his first "clean" race of the season so far. Though he still thinks Ferrari is clearly lacking in several areas compared to its rivals Raikkonen is happy with what he has seen recently.
"Little by little we're getting stronger, on every side," Raikkonen said. "It's not just the engine and the electronics. For sure we don't have the downforce that some of the other teams have. It's the package. I think we are not bad in any of the areas, but we're not good either. We're missing everywhere - the car itself, the downforce, grip, mechanical grip, and the engine power. Some circuits are better for us than others, [but] we keep working and improving things little by little."
Raikkonen believes a strong result would have come sooner were it not for Ferrari shooting itself in the foot during weekends - like it did during qualifying in Hungary when he failed to make it out of Q1.
"We had a good race before, the race before Belgium, the feeling has been better but we put ourselves in a very bad position in qualifying so obviously when you start behind you are fucked already at that point, so there's not much you can do.
"In the last few races we had a lot better feeling. But a lot of things happen in qualifyings and the race itself; we get damage to the wings from other cars. We compromised a lot in races and then we can't run our real race speed. We still have a lot of problem - I don't think we've had any clean weekends. This Friday [at Spa] was pointless for us, we had so many problems. All those things don't make life any easier. We cannot do things that we want and cannot try things; we're playing catch up all the time."
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