Formula 1

F1: Raikkonen finishes season on a high with podium

Published Nov. 29, 2015 4:09 p.m. ET

Adam Cooper

Kimi Raikkonen finished his season strong by taking third place in Abu Dhabi, although he was helped by the fact that his Ferrari teammate Sebastian Vettel started 15th - having to fight his way up.

The Finn said he was pleased with how his weekend went after some difficult races recently.

"I think the whole year, as a team, has been quite good compared with last year," Raikkonen said. "And obviously not so good for myself, but the speed has been there. Just not been able to produce the results - having some issues and mistakes.

"I think in the race, we could have been quite a bit closer but we had some issues at both pit stops, so we lost some time and then I slowed down a bit. But I think we had a reasonably good speed. They didn't really pull away a lot from us. At certain points, I think we were catching them and then they were pulling out, but not an awful lot in it.

"It's never nice to finish third, but I'll take it after previous races. I guess it always could have been a better finish, but I think it was more or less what we expected to get."

Meanwhile, Raikkonen made it clear that he had enough of being asked about beating fellow Finnish driver Valtteri Bottas in the championship.

"You guys have been asking between me and Valtteri for a long time and still it doesn't make much difference to me," Raikkonen added. "It's not what you think - a Finnish championship. It's a World Championship. If you don't win, it doesn't make an awful lot of difference if you're second - wherever you finish.

"I'm happy to have had a kind of OK race in the last one, but it doesn't change anything really of how our season went - what to expect for next year. One of the better weekends but we'll take it and go from here."

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