Categories: F1 News, Reports and Race ResultsFerrari

Raikkonen revels in best atmosphere at Ferrari

Kimi Raikkonen says the atmosphere at Ferrari this season is the best he has ever experienced in Formula One.

Ferrari has made the biggest step forward since the end of 2014 and has been Mercedes’ nearest challenger so far, with Sebastian Vettel winning in Malaysia. Raikkonen has worked under three team principals at Ferrari - Stefano Domenicali, Marco Mattiacci and now Maurizio Arrivabene - and he says the current regime has resulted in the best atmosphere at the team.

“I think everybody is different, they have their own way of working and doing things and obviously I must say in the past when I was here in Ferrari there were some good times and a good atmosphere, but for sure this year is the best I’ve had in any team,” Raikkonen said. “How the team works together, how people work together, how the atmosphere is and how things have been going. That tells you a lot, so you’ll have to ask [Arrivabene] the rest but I’m very happy how things are.”

And Raikkonen says he may look to extend his Ferrari contract - with an option already in place - beyond the end of this season as a result of the current environment.

“We’ll see. Obviously the team has to decide that but you have to talk to them. I’m happy how things are running, obviously we want better results but we’ve been a bit unlucky or whatever you want to call it in the first three races. Hopefully we can get it like the last race which was better but in qualifying I made a mistake so time will tell what will happen. It’s up to the team really to decide that.”

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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.