Räikkönen – Ferrari: “Every team encounters unexpected problems”
After an opening day cut short by a technical problem, Kimi Räikkönen isn't overly worried and is looking forward to the final day of his tests on Saturday, during which he will perform a race simulation.
The last winter testing session before the season’s first Grand Prix, from March 14 to 16 in Melbourne, started relatively quietly for Scuderia Ferrari, which encountered a problem that kept Kimi Räikkönen in the pits for part of the morning. Nevertheless, the Finn managed to complete 54 laps of the Sakhir circuit, approximately 292 km.
« We had a small problem [yesterday], which limited the number of laps, but we still managed to learn new things about the car, » stated the driver number 7 on the official website of the Italian team. « You always want to do better, but every team faces unexpected problems, and we always try to do everything we can to be ready for Melbourne. »
« During race weekends, there will be little time to try different things in terms of settings, so it was important today to spend a lot of time on track to find the right direction to go in. On the last day, we will put together everything we have learned so far and focus on the conditions we will encounter during the races, » added Räikkönen.
More precisely, it’s a race simulation that Iceman will tackle on Saturday, his last day of testing: « Before leaving Sakhir, it is planned that I will do a race simulation and that is the only thing I am missing. Today, we chose to focus on the many things we still have to work on, and we will not make any judgment on the winter tests before the last day, when we have gathered all the data collected. What I can say is that I have experienced worse winters than this one. »
For him, the number of laps is not a relevant indicator for assessing the intrinsic qualities of a single-seater: « We have been on different programs and I don’t think you can judge a car’s potential by the number of laps completed during testing. We have a lot of things to test and we want to use these days to check everything, because the race weekend doesn’t last long and the hours on Friday pass quickly, and on other days you only look at performance. »
Kimi Räikkönen also believes that the parameters to manage this season are not new. According to him, it’s been several seasons since the cars have been driven to their full potential over the course of a race: « We’ve been unable to drive flat out from start to finish for years. First, you had to watch the engines, then it was the tires. You’re never at 100% every lap because there’s always something you need to keep an eye on. We will get used to the 2014 situation, but we need to start racing before worrying about that. »
