Kimi Raikkonen has described Ferrari's current form as "painful".
Ferrari have struggled to challenge so far this season, despite promising race wins and a title tilt in pre-season. At the German Grand Prix, the Italian team dropped behind Red Bull in the constructors' standings for the first time this season.
Despite not getting the results the team was after, Raikkonen has said the team will not give up.
"Everybody can see where we finished and it's obviously a bit painful for all of us," said Raikkonen. "But this is how it is right now and we just have to work hard and improve.
"Obviously we want to win and beat everybody, that's always the aim in racing," he continued. "We were ahead of Red Bull, now Red Bull has got ahead of us."
"Hopefully we can challenge both of them [Red Bull and Mercedes] later on but it's not going to be easy."
Formula One now enters a summer break and Raikkonen hopes that the time away from the track will allow Ferrari to close the gap.
"Hopefully we find some tools to make our car quicker," he said. "Obviously, Spa is a completely different layout to here so it might be different.
"But we have work to be done to get where we want to be. We need to improve."
Replies (6)
Login to replyianf1
Posts: 185
All this hope about things being better after the summer break:
1) I thought the teams weren't allowed to work on their cars or do any development over the break
2) I thought most of the teams were saying they were now concentrating on the 2017 car
Neither of which sound promising for this years car?
ForzaRosso
Posts: 5
The factory shutdown is only for two weeks and Ferrari have said they are working on both 2016 and 2017
calle.itw
Posts: 8,527
No, not work on the car for 2 weeks, but you may work as much as you want on e.g engine development and development for the next season.
ianf1
Posts: 185
ok thanks for the clarification - lets hope they do emerge in a better place for Spa
calle.itw
Posts: 8,527
Indeed, its embarrassing how Red Bull has overtaken them.
FerrariRules
Posts: 3,041
The development of Ferrari has not given enough progress unfortunately.
Such a shame. I was hoping for a few victories this year.
But that is not even going to happen if it stays as it is.
Ah well... there's always next year... :)