Categories: F1 News, Reports and Race ResultsFerrari

Raikkonen plays down beating Bottas to P4

Kimi Raikkonen has played down the impact of beating Valtteri Bottas to fourth place in the drivers' championship, saying he only cares if he wins.

The two Finns were separated by just one point at the start of the final race, with Bottas holding the slight advantage. However, Raikkonen delivered a strong weekend and finished third in Abu Dhabi, ensuring he finished fourth in the drivers' standings as Bottas failed to score.

Asked if it feels better to have moved up from fifth to fourth and improved on his finish of 12th place last season, Raikkonen replied: "Not really.

"You guys have been asking between me and Valtteri for a long time and still it doesn’t make much difference to me. It’s not what you think, a Finnish championship, it’s a World Championship and there are winners it goes from there.

"If you don’t win, it doesn’t make an awful lot of difference if you’re second, wherever you finish. I’m happy to have had a kind of OK race in the last one but it doesn’t change anything really of how our season went, what to expect for next year. One of the better weekends but we’ll take it and go from here."

REPORT: Rosberg takes third win in a row to end season

AS IT HAPPENED: Abu Dhabi Grand Prix

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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.