Kimi Raikkonen has firm belief that Ferrari can again turn him into a grand prix winner – just not this year.
Raikkonen’s return to Maranello this season has been a bitter disappointment as it was firmly expected he would provide team-mate Fernando Alonso with a run for his money.
But the change in the regulations and the introduction of the new power unit has left Ferrari trailing, and Raikkonen with a car that for the most part he has not enjoyed driving.
Of the 142 points Ferrari have accrued in the championship to date, Raikkonen has collected just 27 of them.
Eight of those came from his best result of sixth in the last race in Hungary at the end of last month prior to the current summer break.
To boot, it was from one of his worst grid positions of 16th due to a qualifying gaffe by the team that cost him a place in the second session.
Raikkonen, the 2007 Formula One world champion with Ferrari, knows much still needs to be altered with his racing car and within the team before his situation changes drastically for the better.
“It’s been a hard first part of the year,” said Raikkonen.
“I know I’ve not lost speed from last year, so it’s been disappointing to fight against the issues and problems we’ve had.
“I hope the second part of the season will be much better than the first, but one slightly better day doesn’t change an awful lot. It doesn’t take away the mistakes, the things we have to improve, to make us work much better as a team.
“There are a lot of things that need to be done to make sure we are where we should be.”
Yet Raikkonen believes the team are on the right track, even if progress is slow, which is why he has one eye on next year, not just the final eight races of this season to come.
“I believe in people and the team, that we can put ourselves where we should be, and there are some signs,” added Raikkonen.
“They’ve been putting people in the right areas, and I’m sure in the future it will pay off big time.
“We know where we are, what we have to do, but there’s a long way to go to be where we want to be, as a team, as Ferrari.
“We have to make big steps for next year, to keep improving things, and I know we have good plans.
“We just have to go step by step to improve the issues we have this season and, hopefully, we can put things in the right order for me to be happy all the time with the car.
“That will then allow the team and myself to progress to where I feel we should be and to try to win some races.”