Categories: F1 News, Reports and Race ResultsFerrari

Raikkonen admits relief after 'pretty hard time'

Kimi Raikkonen admits he "had a pretty hard time" in 2014 and has thanked Ferrari for backing him as he has started the new season in strong form.

Raikkonen returned to Ferrari from Lotus at the start of last year but was comprehensively beaten by team-mate Fernando Alonso as he failed to even finish on the podium. With the team much more competitive this year, Raikkonen has found the SF15-T much more to his liking and finished second in Bahrain, 3.3s behind race-winner Lewis Hamilton.

While the Finn says he is never happy unless he is winning races, he admits he is in a much better place personally this season than last.

"Obviously it's much nicer than being out of [the podium] but, you know, you come second and obviously we got quite close to the Mercedes but it’s a bit disappointing after that ... but I’d rather take this one than something else," Raikkonen said. "You cannot feel happy. We are happy to be second but it’s still disappointing; it’s not what we want to do.

"Big thanks to the team, I had a pretty hard time last year. This year in the beginning, just some bad luck in the races but, you know, the team has done a great job over the winter and everybody is pushing together, in the same direction and I’m sure we are only going to get stronger and better as a team and improve the car. So, it’s a great place to be."

Click here for a more light-hearted look at the Bahrain Grand Prix weekend

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Andrew Lewin

Andrew first became a fan of Formula 1 during the time when Michael Schumacher and Damon Hill were stepping into the limelight after the era of Alain Prost, Nigel Mansell and Aryton Senna. He's been addicted ever since, and has been writing about the sport now for nearly a quarter of a century for a number of online news sites. He's also written professionally about GP2 (now Formula 2), GP3, IndyCar, World Rally Championship, MotoGP and NASCAR. In his other professional life, Andrew is a freelance writer, social media consultant, web developer/programmer, and digital specialist in the fields of accessibility, usability, IA, online communities and public sector procurement. He worked for many years in magazine production at Bauer Media, and for over a decade he was part of the digital media team at the UK government's communications department. Born and raised in Essex, Andrew currently lives and works in south-west London.