After his first day behind the wheel of his V6 turbo-charged Ferrari F14T, Kimi Raikkonen has said he does not believe the cars are that different to what they were last year.
Completing a total of 31 laps over the course of the first days’ testing in Jerez, Raikkonen set the fastest lap time of the day. However, Raikkonen warned those watching not to read too much into the times as it was still early days. First impressions of the car were that they were not that different to last year’s V8 powered cars:
“I don’t think that it is an awful lot different,”
“Now when everything is new and in very cold conditions and not so much grip on the circuit, it is a bit trickier and we don’t push much. But it’s still very similar driving as before.”
Considering the many changes in the regulations for 2014, Raikkonen believes that Ferrari have made a solid start to the first pre-season test of the year:
“Now at the beginning there has not been enough time to do everything that we want, but it’s the same for all the teams and I still think we are pretty okay from where we start now. We know which direction we want to go and what we want to do. There’s quite a bit of work to do, but it’s normal in this kind of position and at this time of the year.”
“The biggest challenge is getting all the new stuff working as we want and working together with the electric motor, engine and all the small details, but it is much more tricky than what we are used to do. It’s just the first day with all the new stuff so it takes time get things up to the speed we want. There’s a long way to go and a lot of work to do.”