Categories: F1 News, Reports and Race ResultsFerrari

Raikkonen convinced SF16-H has 'a lot of potential'

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Kimi Raikkonen says the first test has shown him the Ferrari SF16-H has "a lot of potential".

Ferrari is targeting challenging Mercedes for the championship this season, with team principal Maurizio Arrivabene saying he wants to be in the fight until the end of the year.

Asked what is the main positive he will take away from the first test after setting the fastest time on Thursday, Raikkonen replied: "To get the first feeling of the car and I am sure that there is a lot of potential.

"It feels better than last year’s package, and that was the aim. It is very early days, and we have not done a lot of set-up work with it. For sure we can improve it, so we are just doing the normal work."

While Raikkonen admits Ferrari has lost a lot of time after he was limited to 80 laps on Friday, the Finn is not concerned by the mileage that Mercedes has managed.

"Why should I be worried? It is something that some other people do, and we do our own stuff. Obviously we would like to have done more laps; it was almost one day out of two (off the track).

"But it is a part of testing and we are getting ready to go racing, if there are some issues of some things to change or try, we will to it. It is up to us to make sure we are in the right position when we start racing."

REPORT: Raikkonen fastest as McLaren completes just three laps

Day four of the first test as it happened

GALLERY: Pre-season testing

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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.