Raikkonen: For sure this winter could have run a bit smoother for us

4 March, 2013

Kimi Raikkonen during testing in Barcelona

Having wrapped up the team’s pre-season schedule in the Spanish sun on Sunday Kimi Raikkonen gave his thoughts on an eventful winter programme, the importance of understanding Pirelli’s latest range of tyres and his expectations for the first race of the season in Melbourne.

Are you satisfied with progress over the past few weeks of testing?
Kimi Raikkonen: For sure this winter could have run a bit smoother for us and there have been a few problems here and there, but this is pretty normal and whenever we’ve been out on track the car has felt good. The issues we’ve had have been pretty minor and we’ve found solutions to all of them, but unfortunately they took a bit of time to fix so in the end it’s cost us track time which is a shame. If you look back at last year the car was very reliable, so hopefully it will be the same again this season; I’m not worried about it.

Kimi Raikkonen Lotus E21

Tyres have taken centre stage once again, what are your thoughts on the 2013 Pirelli rubber?
KR: They have been graining pretty badly, but that was expected because of the cold and it’s the same for everyone. It’s difficult to say how they’ll behave until we get to the first race, but hopefully it will be quite different in the warmer conditions. If it’s the same as what we’ve seen here then they could be the main difference between the teams for sure… getting the most out of them will be important for everyone.

Next stop is Melbourne, how do you see the pecking order ahead of the season opener?
KR: It’s hard to say as you never know what kind of programme the others are running. We’ve run through a lot of assessments over the past few weeks and the feeling in the team is that we have a strong basis to start the season, even if we haven’t shown that every day. I’m happy with the car and looking forward to going racing. Whether we’ll be up there from the start we won’t know until we get there, but we don’t have to wait very long to find out…