Kimi Raikkonen feels the opening day of practice in Monaco wasn’ the best day for him and the Scuderia Ferrari team as he finished Free Practice 1 behind the Sahara Force India of Sergio Perez in ninth with a time of 1:16.912. In the afternoon session the Finnish driver improved from the morning to go seventh quickest with a time of 1:16.040. Raikkonen also completed the afternoon session ahead of his team-mate Sebastian Vettel by 0.229s.
The Monaco Grand Prix sees the début of the P Zero Purple ultrasoft tyre compound. After using them for the first time at the Monte Carlo street circuit, Raikkonen believes they still need to find a way to make them work slightly better.
“It was not an ideal day, but it is still the first day of practice,” said Raikkonen.
“In the morning I was not very happy with the car but in the afternoon we were able to improve the behavior. There’s a lot of work to do but of course this is not the easiest place when things are not running exactly as you want.
“It’s the first time we use the Ultrasoft compound in the race weekend, the feeling is that it’s the best fitting tire of all of those we have here, but we still need to find a way to make them work slightly better.”
