Kimi Raikkonen: “2016, a difficult year for Ferrari”. Kimi's views on the 2016 season.

Scuderia Ferrari’s inability to fight with arch-rivals Mercedes for the Formula One Driver and Constructors’ Championship was a huge disappointment for the Italian team, as admitted by Kimi Raikkonen. Ferrari came after a promising 2015 season, during which the Maranello side managed to score three victories and at times even challenged Mercedes. This brought about hope at the start of the 2016 season, but the expectations were not at all fulfilled, as the Scudera finished the year without a singe win and even behind Red Bull in the overall constructors’ championship.

“You suffer and we keep working hard and trying the best we can, but unfortunately the results were far from what we wanted,” said Kimi, as reported by Eurosport – “However, I want to say thank you to all the guys, we keep trying new things and improving and learning, which is great. As a result I feel we are in a good position for the next season, because we have been working very well. We hope that the new car will prove to be much more competitive on the track and then I am sure we are going to have a good fight with the rest.”

Despite a disappointing season for the Scuderia Ferrari, Kimi Raikkonen was one of the few positive notes for the Italian team, as the Finn finished sixth in the drivers’ standings, 26 points behing his team-mate Sebastian Vettel, although Kimi deserved a lot better considering his general performance, as several race incidents and bad strategy calls prevented him from scoring more points during the season.

Kimi was pleased with his form, yet expressed his regret for the overall results: “If I just compare this season with to the last two years, yes we can definitely say that it has been better on my side but in the end you cannot be very happy with the results because it is far from what we want to achieve.” – said Kimi, who then concluded: “There were some good things, and they helped us during the year, but obviously the end result is nowhere near what we hope. We finished where we finished so 2016 was a difficult year for us, we cannot be happy with that.”