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Raikkonen unconcerned by Red Bull tyre strategy

Kimi Raikkonen is unconcerned by Red Bull's tyre strategy at the Singapore Grand Prix, and believes is could actually play to his advantage.

Both Red Bull drivers progressed from Q2 using supersoft tyres compared to the rest of the field on ultrasofts, meaning Daniel Ricciardo in second and Max Verstappen in fourth will start the on the slightly harder compound. Raikkonen will start directly behind Verstappen in fifth place, and asked if he was surprised to see Red Bull take a different approach, the Finn replied: "Not really.

"Obviously all of us had the chance to do that but we all do what we think it’s the best for our cars and our teams. How it will pan out, we’ll see, I have no idea and I’m not really interested on how they will run it.

"We have to do our maximum and hopefully it will pay off in a good way. It’s going to be a long race and a lot usually happens, so we have to right with the timings and hopefully we gain some places."

The Red Bull strategy should see Ricciardo and Verstappen able to run a longer first stint in the race, but Raikkonen sees the difference in grip as a potential opportunity at the start.

"Obviously it will help if we can make some positions at the start, but it’s not a very long run down to Turn One. It’s not the end of the world but normally the start is the easiest time to make positions up."

The safety car has also made an appearance in every Singapore Grand Prix so far, but Raikkonen says there is little teams can do to ensure they profit from such a scenario.

"You cannot factor it too much because you never what’s going to happen and if it’s going to happen. There are certain numbers we can look at, what has always been happening here in the past but it’s not guaranteed it will happen again. You have to have a little bit of luck sometimes to be in the right position, to gain time, but you cannot plan for those things. It either goes for you or against you."

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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.