Kimi Raikkonen did not manage a perfect start of the season, finishing fourth in the Australian Grand Prix, a race won by his team-mate Sebastian Vettel, as Scuderia Ferrari showed the team has the potential to fight with rivals Mercedes for wins during the 2017 Formula One championship. Kimi now hopes that things will also improve for him and he will be able to capitalize on the full potential of the SF70H car, in order for the Maranello team to score as many points as possible in the Formula 1 Constructor Standings.
Scuderia Ferrari was highly criticized in 2016 after it failed to top the podium, yet both drivers, Sebastian Vettel and Kimi Raikkonen, frequently said that they were satisfied a reorganisation behind the scenes would eventually prove the right solution over a longer term. It is a tactic that Kimi Raikkonen believes is now beginning to bear fruit, saying the return to form is not the result of hiring new staff but merely “finding the right way to work”:
“Mostly we have the same people, those changes had been done earlier. Obviously it takes a while to find the right way to work but I think we’ve been doing, for quite a while already, very good things as a team but results haven’t really come yet. Hopefully this year we can bring the results, but we have been working very well – I said that many times last year but when you don’t have the results that you want then people are questioning a lot of things. I trust what we’ve done and how we go about things and pushing forward. I’m sure we’re doing things right, so it is just a matter of time before we get the results.” – Kimi Raikkonen said ahead of the 2017 Chinese Grand Prix, as reported by Italian national sports newspaper Corriere dello Sport.
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