Räikkönen drove a GP3 in Barcelona

Kimi Räikkönen took advantage of the break in Formula 1 to drive a GP3 single-seater today at the Circuit de Catalunya. The Lotus driver participated in an official test day scheduled to prepare for the 2014 GP3 Series season.

This day of testing was made possible thanks to the good relationship between the 2007 world champion and Afa Heikkinen, one of the founders of the Finnish team Koiranen GP, which has been competing this year in the GP3 Series as well as in Formula Renault 2.0.

Räikkönen expressed his delight in the statement published on the GP3 website about this test day aboard the GP3/13 – the sole single-seater of the championship: « I wanted to do these tests with the GP3/13 because my friend Afa Heikkinen has a team in this championship and I have closely followed their progress and results since the beginning of the season. I was curious to see how the car behaved and it was fun to drive in the end. There were a few issues with its behavior, but we managed to solve most of them. The GP3/13 is a very good tool for young drivers, especially because they can learn to manage the tires as we have to in F1. »

The Finn completed a total of 58 laps with a best lap time of 1:34.780, which is 8 seconds slower than his best lap (1:26.757) during the 2013 Spanish Grand Prix held on the same track. The day was divided into two parts, with tire testing initially followed by development tests arranged by GP3 and Pirelli to provide more overtaking opportunities next season.

Didier Perrin, technical director of the GP3 Series, expressed satisfaction with the tests conducted by Räikkönen and the outcome of this day: “We are delighted to have had the opportunity to work with Kimi today. His experience and feedback are invaluable and have given us a better understanding of what we need to do to make our car better for overtaking next season. He confirmed all our assumptions, and together we were able to start working on two development directions for the end-of-season tests. We would like to thank Kimi for these tests with us today and Koiranen GP for helping to make this possible.”