Ferrari have led three of the first four days of testing at Jerez but Kimi Raikkonen says it “doesn’t mean much” at this stage.
“But we have quite a good amount of laps and things are working, not having really any issues so that’s the main thing,” he said.
Raikkonen ended the final day of testing with the quickest lap time of the week and acknowledged “everybody seems to be a bit more happy” with the progress made with the new SF-15T so far.
Following his difficult 2014 season Raikkonen feels the new Ferrari is much better suited to his driving style. “Compared to last year things are feeling much better,” he said.
“But obviously we still have a lot of things to work on and things to improve. But we have something we can work with.”
“For sure it’s much better than we had last year,” he added.
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dkpioe
4th February 2015, 18:02
i think it means enough. it is a step ahead of last year, even though raikonnen shows no emotion
Colossal Squid (@colossal-squid)
4th February 2015, 18:19
So Ferrari have appear to have massively improved over the winter from the dog that was the F14T. However we know nothing about where they are relative to the rest of the field. Williams have had a quiet enough test, as have Red Bull. They haven’t shown anything of their true performance. I’d be pleasantly surprised if Ferrari were battling those two for best of the rest this season, with Mercedes again off in the distance. I’m very interested to see what Barcelona brings!
At least Raikkonen is more comfortable judging by his comments. I want to see Kimi back to his best. Vettel-Raikkonen may become the kind of battle that everyone was hoping for between Alonso and Raikkonen last year, but never materialised.
Kingshark (@kingshark)
4th February 2015, 18:35
Ferrari would look quite competitive and second best behind Mercedes in many practice sessions of 2014 (Australia, Malaysia, Canada, Monza just to name a few) only to drop back drastically and only be about 5th fastest as the weekend progressed. With that being said, the SF-15T does seem like a better car than the F14T at this point.
zoom (@zoomracing)
5th February 2015, 15:26
That is because Ferrari sells smoke for the Italian press, I’m sure that Ferrari has improved, how much?, we will see in the first test and not in testing. Even if they improved, they could be the 4th team behind Merc, Williams and RB easily.
Luca Nuvolari (@nuvolari71)
5th February 2015, 17:46
that’s cheap. Petty assumptions based on nothing
Murali Dharan
8th February 2015, 22:22
Yeah, they faded in the race because of their crappy inefficient power unit. I dont think they have improved much there. But until Oz we cant really be sure.
Diego (@ironcito)
4th February 2015, 18:40
The times don’t mean much by themselves, but everyone seems happy with the new Ferrari. Kimi says that it feels much better; Scarbs says that the car looks sable, balanced and with good flow-viz lines; even Sauber are saying that the new Ferrari PU is a big improvement. And they managed to put in a good amount of mileage with no major issues. So, although we’re yet to see how they stack up to other teams, it definitely looks like a big step in the right direction.
Alexander (@)
4th February 2015, 19:04
To the finnish media he also said he’s time was quite good considering the conditions, and that they didn’t even try to do any fast laps
Strontium (@strontium)
4th February 2015, 22:46
And he is right. This is the first test, it means little in terms of pace.
JohnBt (@johnbt)
5th February 2015, 2:16
Kimi is the driver in the thick of the sport so he knows. Wait for Melbourne.
Mashiat Lam Gofran
5th February 2015, 9:25
Knows what?
Jimothy (@jimothy)
5th February 2015, 6:03
To early to tell but a Kimi or Vettel in a car that suits them should (hopefully) be a dangerous combination
Todfod (@todfod)
6th February 2015, 7:44
I think Ferrari could be slightly stronger than last season. They were continuously the 3rd to 5th fastest team last year at every race weekend. I expect them to be the 2nd quickest team on quite a few occassions and think they can genuinely challenge either RB or Williams for the 3rd spot in the constructors
The Wild card this year is Mclaren.. I have a feeling that Mclaren will start the year really slowly, but their form at the end of the season will be better than that of Ferrari