Raikkonen: Strongest F1 team doesn’t always win…

Kimi Raikkonen has refused to call Ferrari the outright fastest team on the Formula 1 grid and feels those who make the fewest mistakes are in the strongest position.

Having endured an incident-filled opening four races at the start of the 2018 F1 season, Raikkonen sits third in the drivers’ championship but 22 points off leader Lewis Hamilton. Some key F1 figures have pointed to Ferrari holding the best overall package so far this year, including title rivals Mercedes, but Raikkonen has shrugged off the suggestion and feels the top three teams including Red Bull are equally matched.

After seeing a likely podium taken away from him in Bahrain after a pit stop error by Ferrari, while profiting from racing incidents to return to the rostrum in Shanghai and Baku, Raikkonen believes with teams so closely matched the fewest mistakes could be pivotal in the F1 title race.

“If you ask ten people there will be many different opinions, we know roughly where we are, what we’re doing but the results are not given,” Raikkonen said. “If you’re the strongest that doesn’t mean you are always going to win the races.

“We keep working and improving. I think it’s very close between the top three, so avoiding any mistakes and issues you can at least give yourself a better chance to be at the top in the end.”

Raikkonen, who will officially switch Ferrari race engineers this weekend at the Spanish Grand Prix as Dave Greenwood steps away from the role to be replaced by Carlo Santi, is enjoying his best start to an F1 campaign since 2013 in his final year competing for Lotus Renault before he moved back to the Italian manufacturer.