At last, the defending F1 world champion finally scored his first win of the season.

With two races done into the 2008 F1 season, defending world champion Kimi Raikkonen finally scored his very first win of the brand new season after a horrific start in Melbourne a few weeks ago.

After finishing 8th in the very first race of the season, Kimi Raikkonen bounced back in Malaysia, finishing first in the recently held 2008 Malaysian Grand Prix last Sunday to cut Lewis Hamilton’s lead in the championship standings by just three points.

Raikkonen silenced his team’s critics with the win, explaining that the new Ferrari F2008 has more than enough pace to score W’s. That’s after some people questioned the car’s reliability when the team failed to finish strong in Australia.

‘’For sure we had quite a difficult weekend in Australia but I didn’t really expect to have such difficulties. We were not 100 percent sure things would be different here. We knew speed wise we would be fine, even in Australia the speed should have been fine,'’ Kimi Raikkonen said.

‘’Everything worked perfectly here and we took it easy to make sure nothing went wrong. We saved the engine. It was a perfect job by the team to come back. I would have been happier with Felipe in second but things go wrong,'’ Raikkonen said, referring to Ferrari teammate Felipe Massa, failing to finish in Malaysia.

‘’I think we still have some difficulties to get the qualifying right,'’ Raikkonen said, referring to their difficulties in qualifying. ‘’It was good in Q2 but in the last session we found no grip on the tires.'’

‘’We knew we were running one lap longer so we were not panicking and knew as long as we kept close I knew a good chance to pass him. The car was good all weekend, but sometimes it was difficult to get the best out the tires.'’

Who will win the 2008 F1 Drivers Championship? Bodog Sportsbook has the odds.

Kimi Raikkonen 2.75

Lewis Hamilton 3.00

Fernando Alonso 7.00

Felipe Massa 7.00

Want more odds? Visit Bodog for more F1 betting odds and the best betting lines on some of today’s biggest sporting events.

Kimi Raikkonen F1 Malaysian Grand Prix