Categories: F1 News, Reports and Race ResultsFerrari

Vettel relationship can help Ferrari - Raikkonen

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Kimi Raikkonen says his good relationship with new team-mate Sebastian Vettel can only help Ferrari.

Vettel moved to Ferrari over the winter as a replacement for McLaren-bound Fernando Alonso, with the four time world champion going on to top the times on the opening two days of pre-season testing. With Raikkonen and Vettel known to get on well, the Finn said their partnership should help maintain a positive feeling at Ferrari.

"We have a good relationship, so we can push the team forward,” Raikkonen said. "Of course we will try to beat each other on the circuit, but I'm sure we'll have some fun.

"The atmosphere already in the team is very good. Hopefully we'll get some good results this year. It can only help the situation.”

And Raikkonen said the mood at Ferrari was boosted by a productive first test which saw the team complete plenty of mileage as well as set the fastest times.

“No problems really. No real big issues just a few small things. We got to do a lot of laps and the weather has been tricky … Not ideal but it’s the same for everyone.

“We did pretty OK in the first test and everybody seems to be happier and have a good feeling, so not a bad start.”

Click here for the full final day gallery from the Jerez test

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Andrew Lewin

Andrew first became a fan of Formula 1 during the time when Michael Schumacher and Damon Hill were stepping into the limelight after the era of Alain Prost, Nigel Mansell and Aryton Senna. He's been addicted ever since, and has been writing about the sport now for nearly a quarter of a century for a number of online news sites. He's also written professionally about GP2 (now Formula 2), GP3, IndyCar, World Rally Championship, MotoGP and NASCAR. In his other professional life, Andrew is a freelance writer, social media consultant, web developer/programmer, and digital specialist in the fields of accessibility, usability, IA, online communities and public sector procurement. He worked for many years in magazine production at Bauer Media, and for over a decade he was part of the digital media team at the UK government's communications department. Born and raised in Essex, Andrew currently lives and works in south-west London.