Several concerns arose in terms of reliability of the V8 engine after a water leak that occurred on the latter stages of the Australian Grand Prix. During the past week, Ferrari race engineers had to find the proper solution to this problem: either Räikkönen would change the engine (thus losing 10 places on the starting grid) or keep it and risking a mechanical failure at Kuala Lumpur. After a series of tests and the 2 practice sessions on Friday, Ferrari opted for the latter.
“We are going to keep it - no reason to change it" said a confident Räikkönen, backed up by team boss Jean Todt: "All the rumors started from speculation. It’s true that at the end of the Australian race Kimi had a problem with and lost some water, but very little. We made more checks than if it didn’t happen, and he simulated the problem during free testing here last week, and after all that we are satisfied that nothing demonstrated that we should change our programme from Australia”.
The Finn will certainly have to give it his best shot on Sunday, since team-mate Felipe Massa outpaced him in both practice sessions on Friday (0.807 and 0.380 seconds respectively). The Brazilian will seek his first podium finish of the season. He started 16th three weeks ago in Melbourne, as he ran into gearbox problems and couldn't record any time in the second phase of qualifying, but drove a superb race to finish sixth.
Räikkönen, however, will try to score his first points in 4 years at the Kuala Lumpur circuit. The Finn failed to finish in a point-scoring position in the last 3 years (retired in 2004 and 2006 and didn't score in 2005) and is very determined to change his luck on Sunday: “We can expect to have a good race. It's never going to be easy, but testing results have seemed to be good. I hope we will be as strong as in Australia”.
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