The full transcript as Kimi Raikkonen faced the media throng in Singapore for the first time since it was confirmed he will be rejoining Ferrari.
Q: (Andrea Cremonesi - La Gazzetta dello Sport) Kimi, Mr Montezemolo said in an interview in our newspaper that he expected victories and poles from you, but also that you can help Alonso to develop the car. Are you ready to spend more time in Maranello, like Fernando, to stay there even more than in the past?KR: "It's a pretty similar answer to before. There are a lot of stories but I think we've done pretty well in this team when we started and I don't see any reason why we shouldn't be able to produce a very good car for next year and keep improving it. Obviously there are new rules so it will be more challenging for all the teams but I have no worries about those things."
Q: (Luc Domenjoz - Le Matin) Kimi, it seems that Lotus owes you a lot of money, so the question is simple: why, if the team doesn't fulfil its part of the contract, why do you respect yours and why don't you simply stay at home?KR: "I like to race and then obviously that's the only reason why I'm here; it doesn't matter which team it is and obviously the reasons why they ask from the team but the reasons why I left from the team is purely on the money side, that they haven't got my salary so it's an unfortunate thing but like I said, I want to try and help the team as much as I can and I like to race."
Q: (Fulvio Solms - Corriere dello Sport) Kimi, referring to your next teammate, what do you think will be possible to learn from him next year and can he learn from you?KR: "For sure, you always learn from different teammates; everyone does different things. Maybe they do something better than you but often there are a lot of things that only suit one guy and it doesn't work if you try to do the same thing for yourself, it's not going to work. I know the team, I know the people. Like I said, I have no worries to go there and have something that wouldn't work. I don't really worry about it, I've never worked with Alonso. I obviously know him from racing but I'm sure it will be fine."
Q: (Andrea Cremonesi - La Gazzetta dello Sport) Kimi, in your choice of Ferrari, is there also a technical reason? I'm thinking about the turbo era; do you think that Ferrari building both engine and chassis could be a better chance of being a competitive car than Red Bull or Lotus next year?KR: "Obviously I hope so. They built very good cars and engines in the past, they've won a lot of championships as a team and then you have to look on the other side at teams like Red Bull or Lotus with Renault who have done very well. It's very hard to say which way it's going to go with the new rules and who's going to have the best package. There are a lot of stories about certain engines that will be much stronger than others but there are so many different things that you have to look at and go through and make sure that it works that I have no idea which team will be strongest and which team will come out on top. We have to wait and see, really, for the first few tests."
