Kimi Raikkonen’s first day back in the cockpit of a Ferrari ended as well as he could have hoped – the Finn set the pace on the first day of winter testing and completed more laps than any other driver.
Although the day ended well for Raikkonen, his first experience of the Ferrari F14 T came to a premature halt after just a few corners, when he stopped the car on track on his very first installation lap for precautionary reasons. Exactly what the problem was, Ferrari is not telling, but it didn’t prevent further running so it couldn’t have been too serious.
Raikkonen told http://www.ferrari.com after the day’s testing: “The biggest challenge now is to ensure everything works. The new cars are much more complicated than the previous ones and there are a thousand details that can slow down the work. This morning, we’d have liked to do a few more laps but in the afternoon I think we did a good job. From a driving point of view, I didn’t feel any amazing difference, although it’s much too early to give an opinion on this.”
“Overall, we can say it was a good start. We have a solid base from which to work over the coming days. The times from this test mean nothing and we will only begin to understand something only in Bahrain. The cars are much slower? It’s pointless making comparisons with the past because everything is completely different.”
Raikkonen will drive the F14 T again on day 2 of the Jerez test, before handing the car over to Fernando Alonso on Thursday and Friday of this week.
Chris on F1 
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