Categories: F1 News, Reports and Race ResultsFerrari

Arrivabene won’t ignore Raikkonen

Maurizio Arrivabene says he will not ignore Kimi Raikkonen despite the strong start from Sebastian Vettel since he joined Ferrari.

Vettel replaced Fernando Alonso ahead of this season and has already been described as a “carbon copy” of Michael Schumacher by Arrivabene. However, following Vettel’s podium on debut for the team in Australia - where Raikkonen retired - the Ferrari team principal says it is important the Finn feels just as valued as his new team-mate to ensure both perform to the best of their abilities.

“Seb of course was happy because his dream came true,” Arrivabene said. “To get a podium with Ferrari is something really special for a Formula One driver.

“Concerning Kimi I went straight away to talk to him. What you need to do with a driver is you need to understand them and you need to keep him up. Otherwise if you go to celebrate with one and ignore the other it doesn’t work.

“The two guys are working very well together and my job is to keep the right balance and to make Kimi confident. I was repeating to him many times: ‘Kimi, you are like a hammer! You are pushing like hell and your timing was super good.’ So I am convinced. We need two drivers for the constructors’, not one, and Kimi I think can do his job properly.”

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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.