Categories: F1 News, Reports and Race ResultsFerrari

Ferrari closer than people think - Raikkonen

Kimi Raikkonen says Ferrari is closer to Mercedes on outright pace than people think, even despite Sebastian Vettel winning in Malaysia.

Vettel’s win at Sepang was a surprising one but has been largely attributed to the hot conditions seen on race day. With much cooler temperatures forecast in China, Mercedes says it expects to be quickest once again but Raikkonen believes people have been too quick to dismiss how competitive Ferrari can be in all conditions based on the opening race of the season.

“I said after Australia that if we had been behind them in the race then I don’t think they would pull away, at least not as far as people think,” Raikkonen said. “All the circuits are slightly different, all the conditions are different and one car works a bit better in one place than the other.

“Maybe we are not exactly where we want to be right now but if we compare with where we were last year I’m sure we would be very happy with where we are, at least right now, when we finished the season. There is still a lot of work to do to be absolutely happy with all the things but that’s why we are here.

“I think as long as we keep working in the same way we’ve been doing so far we’ll get there. It’s a new circuit this year and we’ll see how it goes but I don’t expect that suddenly things change. I think Mercedes can be very fast in qualifying and then in race pace conditions Mercedes has been a bit closer.”

Click here for Chris Medland's Chinese Grand Prix preview.

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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.