F1 News
Date: 23/April/2012
Reigning F1 world champion Sebastian Vettel got his and Red Bull’s 2012 campaign back on track with his first victory of the season at Bahrain on Sunday.
But it was the performance of returning former champion Kimi Raikkonen, 32, that stole much of the limelight.
While fellow former Ferrari driver Michael Schumacher is still without a podium since returning to the sport in 2010, Raikkonen has taken just four races to get back on the rostrum.
A typically calm Raikkonen reflected: “A podium could have come in the first three races. We know from the winter that we have a very good car and just have to make the right decisions. This weekend it worked, last weekend [in China, 14th place] it didn’t.”
The Finn, who spent two years rallying after turning his back on F1 at the end of 2009, pushed Vettel for victory throughout the Bahrain event and crossed the line just three-seconds behind the German.
Raikkonen’s podium was the first for Lotus (formerly known as Renault) in over a year and the team’s celebrations were completed by third place for rookie Romain Grosjean.
Speaking after his 63rd rostrum finish, Raikkonen refused to get carried away with bold claims for the rest of the season - but did admit to being disappointment at not taking victory.
“It’s a bit disappointing that I didn’t manage to win it,” he said. “But I made a small mistake at the beginning and lost one place to Ferrari. I had to re-overtake him and it took a little time. I got past the people quite easily but if you look in the end I think we still took too long and we couldn’t win the race.
“It’s always easy to say afterwards ‘if we had done that’ but in the end we were not fast enough to win and we have to take the second. I got one chance on Sebastian but I chose the wrong side under braking, so that was it really. It’s disappointing to finish second but after the last race [14th in China] we have to take it and be pretty happy.”
F1 2012 has now seen four different winners from four different races, Vettel joining Jenson Button (McLaren), Fernando Alonso (Ferrari) and Nico Rosberg (Mercedes).
Vettel now leads the standings by four points from McLaren’s Lewis Hamilton, with team-mate Mark Webber a single point further back.
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