Kimi’s column: Australia GP Preview

Getting grips again

Time flies, while we race during the season. It¹s a long year by the calendar, but if we are going well, it feels we approach finishing the season very quickly after starting it all over again.

Obviously, time flies during the vacation, as well. It feels like we just came back from Brazil, and now we are again in Australia starting the new season.

I travel so much because of the long season, so I prefer just staying at home for the days-off. I have relaxed with the family and friends, as usual. I trained hard and prepared myself for the new challenges of this season.

During the pre-season testing nobody could get grips with the new generation of Pirelli tyres, so it takes a couple of races into the season to know better, how they perform in hot weather.

I don¹t expect any radical change since last year. However, for one lap we should get more speed and competitiveness, so that¹s always a welcome thing.

We had some small issues during the testing, and they cost a lot of track time. I liked the new car. It¹s giving nice and positive feeling, every time while I managed to get some laps with it.

I feel the new car is a improvement in all the areas compared to last year¹s car. It¹s not giving any guarantees to produce better results, but, for sure, I will try my very best to have a stronger campaign again.

But right now it¹s useless to start guessing who will be in the front. Let¹s wait until Saturday for the first qualifying to see all the cars having the first real laps in same fuel loads and tyres.