Kimi Raikkonen will start Sunday's Italian Grand Prix from pole position – his first since the 2017 Monaco GP and only his second pole in ten years, having started from the top spot at the '08 French GP – and said there is no better place to do so than at Ferrari's home race.
Raikkonen's pole lap is Formula 1's fastest ever and sees him start ahead of team-mate Sebastian Vettel as the Finn hunts his first victory since 2013, but admitted pole is only "half the job".
"Obviously it’s great for tomorrow but it’s just half the job done," said Raikkonen. "I couldn’t think of a better place to start from pole position, in front of the tifosi and hopefully we’ll get the same result tomorrow.
"Of course if you could chose from all the places, this is probably the best place to take pole position – I have been close a few times but it didn’t go right in the end. It was a bit tricky in the second chicane but the last lap was pretty decent and enough to get pole position.
"There were a lot of games to see who was going to go first and getting tows, but in the end we just drive the cars and that’s enough. The car has been working well, of course conditions have been tricky, but nonetheless I don’t think we changed the car a lot since the first runs of yesterday."
Raikkonen denied it was a relief to finally return to the top spot on Saturday, having missed out on numerous occasions this year.
"It’s not a relief because it’s not my first pole position. If this had been my first one then of course it would have been different.
"I keep trying always, and sometimes it works out, sometimes it doesn't. It’s not as easy as it looks on TV. Today and the whole weekend it has been working pretty well, the conditions were changing all weekend, but nevertheless it was close and there were three cars that looked like they could all get it.
"In the end we got it but that doesn’t really change anything because it’s tomorrow we have to do the main job."
