Raikkonen learns plenty, very positive after first test

Posted by Mikel on January 25th, 2012 at 11:55am

It’s all sunshine and light coming out of the Lotus team today following Kimi Raikkonen’s two-day pre-test test with his new Formula 1 team.

“It went well today and overall the two days have been helped me a lot,” Raikkonen said of his test with Lotus, according to Autosport. “Even though I was using a two year-old car and the Pirelli demonstration tyres, I learnt about working with the team and the engineers which means I can focus on the new car once we get to Jerez for the first official test.

“It was great to be driving an F1 car again and from that respect I feel very positive.”

Kimi was in an 2010 Renault with Pirelli demonstration tires. The team put him through a variety of fuel loads and he finished up more than the equivalent of two race distances.

“We enjoyed another good day with Kimi in Valencia,” Lotus’s Trackside Operations Engineer Alan Permane said. “The morning was spent doing set-up work in particular with front and rear cambers. In the afternoon we ran very low fuel qualifying simulations with two new sets of tyres followed by a 27 lap run starting with a full tank of fuel.

“Kimi’s pace improved from yesterday as we would expect and we completed several start, pitstop and clutch simulations. We were even able to finish early as we completed our programme ahead of time. Overall it has been a productive and valuable two days.”

OK, can I sound a word of caution? They finished early? That sounds like the old, ice cream-eating Kimi, sort of, doesn’t it? I’m sure it isn’t that, but… well, I’d think everyone would want to squeeze the most out of every second available.

Under Racing