New Ferrari 'already better' than end of '15 - Raikkonen

Kimi Raikkonen says the new Ferrari is "already a better car than the end of last year" despite a difficult first day of testing for him.

While Sebastian Vettel was fastest on each of the opening two days of the first test in Barcelona, Raikkonen was hit by a fuel system problem on day three and completed just four laps before the lunch break. A more productive afternoon session followed as the Finn set the third quickest time and added 74 laps to his total and Raikkonen was left encouraged by his first impressions of the SF16-H.

"Obviously not the ideal start, we lost half a day," Raikkonen said. "Sometimes you have issues thst you have to fix and it took a bit long but we managed to do quite a few laps. We haven’t changed the car a single bit yet so were trying to do small runs at first and get used to the car a bit and then longer runs in the afternoon.

"The first feeling is quite nice. Not the best day overall but I’m sure it will be good, we just need more time in the car and obviously we are working on different things and trying better things. I’m sure it’s going to be a better car - it’s already a better car than the end of last year so we are doing the right things."

And Raikkonen says he was not left frustrated by the reliability problems, because Ferrari managed to run without issues in the afternoon.

"As far as I know it’s the fuel system, which are obviously tricky things on the new cars. You have to take time to fix certain things otherwise you might end up having a bigger issue.

"It’s painful to lose a lot of time in the morning or half a day but I would rather take that and we manage to do some laps - quite a few laps actually - than having a silly issue and missing the whole day."