| Source: autosport.com | commentary | ferrari.com |
Ferrari had a quiet morning on Kimi Raikkonen’s final day in the car, and it finally managed to carry out some race simulation work with the Finn in the final two hours of the day.
That left just enough time for some short runs just before the end, which enabled the 2007 world champion to set the third-fastest time.
Commentary:
12:30 As the recovery truck heads back to the paddock, we have a little over two hours to go here. If we have any more disruptions that could prove costly to Raikkonen’s hopes of getting a race simulation in.
13:03 That first stint from Raikkonen was three laps longer than Alonso’s opener yesterday afternoon, and on average it was around 0.3s per lap slower than the Spaniard managed.
13:36 Raikkonen pits for a second time in this race simulation. Ferrari are running this ‘race’ slightly differently to Alonso’s yesterday, giving Raikkonen a much longer second stint than his team-mate did.
Edd Straw (@autosport on Kimi’s bad luck in testing): “Sometimes things just go that way. With only 12 days of testing, usually one driver will be the unfortunate one. For example, prior to today, with one day left for each, Nico Rosberg was about 500km up the road from Lewis Hamilton.
“Certainly, Raikkonen has been extremely unfortunate – and has had problems again today – but he’s a professional, experienced driver and it won’t disadvantage him. As he would doubtless say, he knows what he’s doing!
“Given the learning curve teams are on with these engines, it would be impossible to build your programme around trying to give one driver the more high-risk days, and there would be no benefit to doing so.”
Pos Driver Team/Car Time Gap Laps
1. Felipe Massa Williams-Mercedes 1m33.258s 99
2. Nico Rosberg Mercedes 1m33.484s +0.226s 103
3. Kimi Raikkonen Ferrari 1m35.426s +2.168s 87
4. Kevin Magnussen McLaren-Mercedes 1m35.894s +2.636s 88
5. Daniil Kvyat Toro Rosso-Renault 1m36.113s +2.855s 81
6. Nico Hulkenberg Force India-Mercedes 1m36.205s +2.947s 115
7. Jules Bianchi Marussia-Ferrari 1m37.087s +3.829s 78
8. Marcus Ericsson Caterham-Renault 1m38.083s +4.825s 117
9. Romain Grosjean Lotus-Renault 1m42.166s +8.908s 33
10. Adrian Sutil Sauber-Ferrari 1
11. Sebastian Vettel Red Bull-Renault 0
The sun was still shining on Scuderia Ferrari as it tackled the penultimate day of testing at the Sakhir Circuit. It marked Kimi Raikkonen’s final test appearance prior to the Finn getting back behind the wheel of the F14 T at the Australian GP in twelve days’ time.
In the morning, after a series of laps, the team had to deal with a problem relating to a connector, which meant the mechanics had to partially dismantle the car to get it fully sorted out.
In the afternoon, Kimi did some short runs as well as a race simulation, including some live practice pit stops. Testing continues at this circuit tomorrow, when Fernando Alonso will be on track for the final day of the test.
QUOTES
Kimi Raikkonen: “I’d hoped to do more laps, but this wasn’t an easy day. We lost some time this morning when we had to fix something on the car, but then we managed to make up for some of it in the afternoon. Running a race distance, we continued to get more data relating to fuel consumption strategies and tyre degradation, even though the strong wind upset the driving a lot. I’d like to be able to say we did better, but there’s still one more day with Fernando to continue our preparation for Melbourne.”
KIMI RÄIKKÖNEN SPACE 