Kimi Raikkonen is hoping to strengthen his bid for the world title with a win at next weekend's Belgian GP.
The 2007 champion secured second for Lotus last time out when he finished second behind Lewis Hamilton of McLaren at the Hungarian GP before the summer break.
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Kimi Raikkonen
Although the Finn has finished on the podium on four occasions, he is still in search of his first win since his return and is currently fifth in the title race, 48 points behind championship leader Fernando Alonso of Ferrari.
In spite of this, the 32-year-old has won four times at the fast-paced Spa Francorchamps circuit and recognised the impact a strong result will have on his claims for world title glory. Kimi said: “I am now fifth in the championship and obviously aiming at getting more points than the guys in front of me. The smaller the gap to the leaders is, the better for me and for the team. Usually I’ve achieved good results at the Belgian GP, but what’s happened before doesn’t help me right now. Obviously it would be great to win at Spa for a fifth time. I haven’t won during the first part of the season and the extra points are always good.”
Although Raikkonen and his Lotus teammate Romain Grosjean showed excellent race pace during the first half of the season, the pair struggled to match the pace of rival teams during qualifying.
Raikkonen acknowledged he cannot afford to lose any more ground in the title race. “Every race from here on is very important. The whole team is pushing 100 per cent and we need to beat our rivals and take more points than they do every time. We have not been so strong in qualifying as we have in the race which makes life harder for ourselves on Sundays, but we will keep trying.”
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