18/10/2007
NEWS STORY
Kimi Raikkonen celebrated his 28th birthday yesterday in Sao Paulo with the decisive race for the drivers' championship in sight.
"I have no special plans to celebrate: It is better just to focus on the race weekend. I just hope for one present for my birthday and I hope to receive it after the race on Sunday afternoon!" said Kimi.
"After the race in China I've been to Dubai for a couple of days. They have great weather this time of the year. We go to Brazil in third position, so I'm not really the favourite for the title. But as we saw at Shanghai two weeks ago anything can happen. Whatever will happen, it's going to be a very exciting race. We will give it all. It is nice to get on going after the Chinese Grand Prix, where I had a very good feeling with the car and the team. We couldn't do very much to prepare ourselves for Interlagos. We have just done some simulations and analyzed the data. Let's hope that everything will be all right for this demanding and bumpy track. I know that the track has been redone, but we have to wait and see."
"I think that our competitors have done their job as we did. There's lots of pressure on both sides. They have two drivers in the race for the title and they also fight each other. Hopefully we can benefit from that," added the Finnish driver. "At Interlagos we need a strong package, especially the engine is very important for the long rising main straight." "I will start this race the same way as into the last two. My aim is to win and the rest is not up to me. It is a similar situation as in 2003, when I lost the title to Michael. But at a certain point during the Japanese GP it was a really close call. Hamilton has seven points more than us: there's not much to calculate. We have to win and that's it."
The Finn also underlined that he doesn't expect the tyres to be a problem: "I've been reading stories that the supersoft tyres should be better for our competitors. That might have been true early in the season. But then things improved for us in terms of the setup. So we just have to wait and see how it goes in Brazil. I have been close to winning at Interlagos, but it has never quite paid off. I've finished three times second, which is not that bad at all. Once I already had the trophy back home for a couple of days. But I had to give it back later because the FIA had checked the classification again."
"Two weeks ago I said the same about Shanghai and then, this year, I won: let's hope history repeats itself!"
A group of fans has set up a special page where Kimi's supporters can post happy bithday messages for the title contender, click here