Raikkonen downplays impact of Ferrari upgrade

Kimi Raikkonen has labelled the power unit upgrade introduced by Ferrari at this weekend’s Italian Grand Prix as “a small thing”, but adds that it is a step “in the right direction”.

The Scuderia spent its final engine development tokens ahead of its home event at Monza in a bid to regain the upper hand over Red Bull in the hunt of Mercedes in the Constructors' championship.

“It is a pretty small step and we wouldn't put anything in the car that wouldn't improve our performance,” Raikkonen replied when asked for his feedback after sampling the evolution in Friday practice.

“It's just a normal progress, we try to improve all the areas and that's one of them. It's a small thing but it's the right direction.”

The Finn and team-mate Sebastian Vettel had a pretty straightforward opening day at Monza, occupying third and fourth position, ahead of Red Bull, across FP1 and FP2. Despite Ferrari slashing the gap to Mercedes in the afternoon, Raikkonen says he actually had a more productive session in the morning.

“I think the first practice was pretty good, the second one less good, with new tyres and yellow flags and stuff like that. Overall it was not too bad, the car was feeling pretty OK. There are things to improve, always, but it started pretty OK.”

“We had a little bit of an issue with our front tyre [in FP2], we got some sort of cut for whatever reason. We were suppose to run those on a long run but we couldn't use it because it was broken, with the cut. So it was a bit messy but we will see what tomorrow brings.”

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