Team chief Ron Dennis was angry and happy at the same time on Sunday night as he celebrated Kimi Raikkonen’s victory for McLaren in the Canadian Grand Prix and disputed the disqualification of his team-mate Juan Pablo Montoya.
Dennis looked as if he did not know if he should laugh or cry, but he looked more disappointed than anything after seeing the prospects of a much bigger points haul wrecked when Colombian Montoya was black-flagged for ignoring a red light in the pit lane.
”It was a situation in which there is very little you can do,” he said.
”If you dispute it or stay out on the track after a black flag you take the risk of a much heavier punitive sanction. That’s motor racing.”
But he was delighted for his victorious Finn Raikkonen who boosted his challenge for the drivers’ championship by cutting leader Spaniard Fernando Alonso’s advantage to 22 points after eight of the season’s 19 Grands Prix.
For Raikkonen, who saw Alonso crash out while running at the front, it was some consolation for suffering a similar fate in the previous race at the European Grand Prix.
”That was really good,” said Raikkonen. ”At one point, we were a bit lucky maybe to win today, but it didn’t matter because we were unlucky in the last race. So we got something back.
”I am more than happy to win this race and we have got those 10 points back from Renault. We are firmly back in the championship now and we are fighting.”
Raikkonen said he always felt confident of victory in Sunday’s hard contest even when he was back in fifth place and struggling with his steering.
”We had a fast car, but I had a small problem with the steering wheel turning left and it was getting worse and worse all the time.
It wasn’t running straight in a straight line anymore, so I asked the team what was going on and they said they could see the problem, but didn’t know what it was.
”They asked me to look after the car a bit, but I was really wanting to win the race and so I pushed as hard as I could and in the end it paid off.”
Asked after the race if he had believed he would win, he said: ”I thought that anything was possible. This race is very hard for the car, for the brakes, everything is always on the limit here.
”We knew that we had a good race car so we just went into the race and thought that we were going to finish on the podium and try to win if possible. That is what happened.”
He said he put all mechanical worries about his car out of his mind on the final lap and fought to keep Michael Schumacher behind him in second place.
”I said to myself that I am not going to let him pass me and I just pushed. I was not worried,” he said.
”By then, the car had lasted a long time. I thought it should be OK. I don’t usually worry about these things. If it breaks, it breaks.” – Sapa-AFP