Kimi Raikkonen says Ferrari is “in a much better position” than last year but admits his team still needs to “improve quite a bit” in order to mix it at the very sharp end of the field.
Following a dismal 2014 season, the Finn was on course to reap a strong point haul in Melbourne’s season-opening round, as Ferrari seems to have turned things around over the winter.
Team-mate Sebastian Vettel finished best of the rest behind Lewis Hamilton and Nico Rosberg in Australia after keeping Felipe Massa’s Williams at bay for the entire second half of the race.
Both Mercedes drivers believe Ferrari has closed the gap and is now their nearest rivals this year, especially in terms of race pace. Although he acknowledges his team’s improvements, Raikkonen thinks there is still some work that needs to be done before catching up the current frontrunners.
“Obviously we are in a much better position than we were say even at the end of last year,” he said. “So in that way it's a nice place to be but obviously we still have to improve quite a bit. We want to be in front and we still don't have the speed exactly, at least in qualifying, to be there.
“In the race I think we are a bit stronger compared to Mercedes. But I think it will be a fun year, obviously not an ideal start of the year and we got some damage from the start and had those issues in the pit stops but you know it can happen sometimes but at least we had pretty good speed.
“I’m sure we’re going to have strong races and good battles but like I said we still have some work to do to be absolutely where we want to be but we have done a good job so far.
After experiencing a torrid campaign in last year’s Ferrari, Raikkonen also explains that Maranello’s new SF15-T represents a major step forward across the board.
“I think it’s the whole package. It’s not just the engine we improved. Yes, we improved that a lot but we improved the chassis itself a lot as well. It’s the whole package, you cannot just point to one area that has been improved from last year, it’s the whole thing.
“I think how everybody works and it’s one team and things are going in the right direction and people are pushing and doing a good job. Like I said, it’s still early days. We still have to work hard and improve things but where we started, so far we have done a good job.”
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