On his final day of pre-season testing before the start of the season, Kimi Raikkonen set the fastest time seen so far in 2016 around the Circuit de Catalunya to end up on top of the timesheets.
The Scuderia Ferrari driver set a best time of 1m22.765s on the Ultrasoft Pirelli tyre to lead the way ahead of Felipe Massa of Williams, with Raikkonen feeling the day was one of the best days he’s had so far.
“It was one of our best days of testing,” said Raikkonen. “We could run without a single stop, except for the red flags on track.
“Maybe we could have been faster on some laps, but in general the feeling was fine and we are more or less happy with the way things are going. Of course there’s always room to improve and work to do.
“Like I said many times, I don’t like guessing so there’s no point in figuring out where we’ll be in Melbourne. We will try our best as always.”
Raikkonen became the first driver to try out the Halo head protection system during the morning session, and felt the design may need some work to reduce the visibility limitations. The system is set to be introduced into Formula 1 in 2017.
“This morning I tried the Halo protection device and the difference to the usual driving was surprisingly small,” said Raikkonen.
“The visibility is just a little bit limited at the front but I don’t think this is the final version of the device, so it can be improved further.”
