Raikkonen: Kubica and BMW are title contenders

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Ferrari driver Kimi Raikkonen believes that Robert Kubica and BMW-Sauber are credible threats to this season s championship titles. Raikkonen believes that whilst the BMW is not the quickest car in F1, the team has good consistency and means they have a good shot at both titles. However BMW’s technical director Willy Rampf says it’s too early to tell.

“They are scoring points all the time,” Raikkonen explained. “Nobody can count them out. Kubica is five points ahead of Lewis and Massa, and seven ahead of me.

“Now the finish one and two, when things go wrong with the guys at the front. It gives them a nice lead. I think with our car we should be able to win races and come back it s still early in the season and we re not in the strongest position right now but we just need to start winning races again.”

Despite Raikkonen s complimentary words, BMW-Sauber s technical director Willy Rampf has said it is too early to start talking about whether his team can take either of the titles this season. BMW are in a strong position thanks to a 1-2 at Sunday s Canadian Grand Prix meaning Kubica now leads the drivers championship, and BMW just three points behind leaders Ferrari in the constructors championship.

“I think it s too early to say,” Rampf explained. “We are very proud of what we achieved up to now with the first victory, and the position one and two is even better it is what you dream of. But to think about the world championship? It is nice but much too early.

“Let s see. We will look at every single race individually and now we will focus on Magny-Cours to see what we can do there. It is certainly mission accomplished everything that comes now is on top.”

Rampf also explained that he believes McLaren and Ferrari are still the top teams and have better pace than BMW.

“From the beginning of the season, there is very strong three teams and Ferrari and McLaren were still equal or slightly ahead of us. That is still the case I think the picture has not really changed.

“We have to be realistic. Normally they are slightly better than us and today we benefitted from the incident at the end of the pit-lane but that is part of the game. If you want to win, everything has to be perfect and that is what happened to us. Some other teams were not so lucky.”