أرشيف وسم ‘ Kimi Raikkonen ’
Pastor Maldonado sent Lotus to the top of the times after setting the quickest time on the first day of the second pre-season test at the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya. Maldonado recovered from two early stoppages to set a time of 1:25.011 on the Soft tyres, narrowly beating Kimi Raikkonen's quickest effort, which the Finn had achieved on the Medium compound. Daniel Ricciardo was third quickest for Red Bull, having set his best time on Options. Sergio Pérez completed the afternoon session for Force India and […]
Ferrari has confirmed its driver rota for next week's second pre-season test at the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya. Kimi Raikkonen will pilot the SF15-T next Thursday and Friday, before Sebastian Vettel takes over duties for the final two days. Ferrari's line-up is a reverse from the first test, held at Jerez, when Vettel debuted the SF15-T before Raikkonen set the quickest time of the week. The four day test begins at the home of the Spanish Grand Prix next Thursday.
Formula 1 returned to action this week at Jerez in southern Spain, with eight teams putting the first miles on their 2015 machines. Here's how each team fared across the four day test. Mercedes: Fastest lap: 1:21.982 (Nico Rosberg) Laps completed: 516 Mercedes’ start to the campaign didn’t feature any headline-grabbing times but their consistency and reliability straight out of the box was highly impressive. Red Bull Christian Horner jokingly said the squad was ‘taking the mickey’ when Rosberg racked up 157 laps on Sunday. […]
Valtteri Bottas has not denied he might be looking to take Kimi Raikkonen's place at Ferrari for 2016. Raikkonen, who struggled last year, remains under contract to the Maranello team for this season, with an 'option' still in place for 2016. When asked about that at the Jerez test, the Finn answered: "It's up to me and the team to do a good job this year. "If it goes badly and I don't sign it then I don't sign it." Fellow Finn Bottas, who is […]
Kimi Räikkönen ensured that Ferrari ended the Jerez test on top after he set the fastest time of the week on the final day at the Spanish venue. Räikkönen posted a time of 1:20.841 on the Soft tyres with 90 minutes remaining to narrowly eclipse the time set by team-mate Sebastian Vettel on Monday. Sauber ensured that its bright start continued as Marcus Ericsson placed second, 1.1s down on Räikkönen. Ericsson did, however, cause the session to be halted when he stopped on track with […]
Sebastian Vettel is reportedly first in line to test Ferrari's 2015 car when the new campaign begins in Spain. On Thursday, McLaren confirmed that returning driver Fernando Alonso will be the one who pilots the new Honda-powered MP4-30 when pre-season testing begins at Jerez on February 1st. Ferrari's plans are also beginning to emerge, with Sport Bild reporting that Kimi Raikkonen will drive on the final two days of the test, hence Vettel will debut Ferrari's new car. Ferrari revealed earlier in the week that […]
Jean-Eric Vergne has admitted he has set his sights on Kimi Raikkonen's 2016 race seat at Ferrari. The Frenchman was part of the Red Bull young driver system but was dropped by Toro Rosso at the end of 2014. He has rescued his F1 career with a test driver role at Ferrari, although the top reserve seat was already filled by the heavily Mexican-backed Esteban Gutierrez. "Honestly," Vergne told Italy's La Gazzetta dello Sport, "I prefer having the job of working on the simulator and […]
Kimi Raikkonen will need to prove in 2015 that he deserves another year at Ferrari. That is the warning of new Ferrari team boss Maurizio Arrivabene, following recent reports that the Finnish driver wants to stay at Maranello not only next year but perhaps also in 2016. 35-year-old Raikkonen, however, struggled notably on his return to the Maranello team from Lotus this season, with a points haul one third the size of Fernando Alonso's and not a single podium appearance. "Last season was difficult for […]
Fernando Alonso says he hopes he can enjoy a special final race with Ferrari as his five-year stint at the team comes to an end at the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix. Alonso will start the race from 10th place in the Ferrari F14 T after a mistake on his Q3 lap but is hopeful that he can make progress. "Today’s qualifying was very tricky on a weekend that, in general, has been more complicated than usual," he said. "Changing the engine after the final free […]
Kimi Raikkonen believes that he has made progress with the Ferrari F14T as he finished in seventh place in the Brazilian Grand Prix. Raikkonen executed a two stop strategy to claim seventh place, his best result since Belgium, despite being slowed in the pits by a front jack failure. "Overall, this has been a positive weekend and even in the race, I felt very good in the car," he said. "During the second stint, we realised that if we went for a two stop strategy, […]
Kimi Raikkonen is suffering psychologically alongside his Ferrari teammate Fernando Alonso this year. That is the view of Felipe Massa, who although still friends with Alonso failed to regularly match the Spaniard's pace before he lost his race seat at the end of last year. The Maranello team replaced Massa with Finn Raikkonen, his old Ferrari teammate and the 2007 world champion, who has notably struggled in red in 2014. "I think Kimi's problem is psychological," Massa, now a Williams driver, told Lance!, a Brazilian […]
Kimi Raikkonen will race a new chassis in Austin and beyond, the Italian publication Omnicorse reports. After finishing ninth in Russia, the Finn was quoted in Ferrari's post-race statement as saing: "(Austin) is very demanding and interesting and I hope I don't have the same problems I had here". Omnicorse claims that the normally phlegmatic Raikkonen, who has struggled alongside Fernando Alonso in 2014, "raised his tone of voice" with boss Marco Mattiacci at Sochi. "He made it clear that he is 110 per cent […]