"Obviously we don’t speak a lot on the radio," says Kimi as the Finn reacts to the team radio crackdown this weekend
Thursday 18 September 2014 12:34, UK
Kimi Raikkonen has admitted that Ferrari still have ‘a lot of work to do’ despite the Finn’s recent improvement.
Although Raikkonen has scored over half of his 2014 points tally in the last three races, his return to the Scuderia has proven to be the disappointment of the year with Fernando Alonso comprehensively out-pacing his new team-mate and the Finn usually to be found languishing in the midfield.
Raikkonen’s struggles to master the F14 T have been apparent since the start of winter testing, the 2007 World Champion’s precise driving style utterly unsuited to the aggressive behaviour of his erratic new charger, and he has yet to enjoy a single visit to the podium this term. Despite widespread pre-season expectation that their intra-team rivalry would be the team-mate battle of the year, Alonso has enjoyed a walkover. For every point Raikkonen has scored this term, the Spaniard has registered three.
Nevertheless, Ferrari have confirmed that both Alonso and Raikkonen, who signed a two-year deal upon his return as Felipe Massa’s replacement 12 months ago, will be retained for 2015, and Raikkonen still believes that the team have plenty to learn in the remaining six races of the year.
“We will try to do as well as we can and have good results, but I expect it to be difficult,” the Finn conceded. “The team didn’t expect us to have this difficulty and to be stronger overall, it’s part of the game and we have to try to sort things out.
"I think we’ve made good improvements from where we started as a team and I’m getting more happy things but obviously we’re not where we want to be and have a lot of work to do.”
Following his unforgettable “I know what I’m doing” riposte to his then Lotus team as he closed in on victory in Abu Dhabi two years, Raikkonen has been frequently cited in dispatches on the FIA’s recent team radio clampdown. Yet, while the famously taciturn 34-year-old is unlikely to be unduly affected by the change - "obviously we don’t speak a lot on the radio in my case when there’s no issues” - he does have concerns about the possible implications of the crackdown.
“It might get quite complicated if there are some problems with the car and you have to change certain things to try to finish the race,” he added. “I don’t know how the rule goes on those times, obviously it makes it more complicated for us, but it’s part of the game.”
The 2014 Singapore GP is live only on Sky Sports F1 this weekend, with our coverage beginning with Practice from 10.45am on Friday.
