Räikkönen is reborn - Arrivabene
Ferrari team principal Maurizio Arrivabene expects the 2007 world champion Kimi Raikkönen in a completely new shape when the curtains fall at the season opener Australian GP.
Kimi Raikkönen was struggling for speed last year when he was regularly heavily outpaced by the now McLaren-bound Fernando Alonso. The Finn couldn’t find the way to drive around the F14-T’s understeering nature. This year, however, Raikkönen has seemed to be much happier with the Scuderia’s new machine, the SF15-T.
"We’ve still got a long way ahead of us but the team is working well and has produced a very nice car."
The 35-year-old champion also hails Ferrari’s dramatic changes over the last months in terms of team structure, technical and senior staff.
"There is a nice atmosphere in the team," he is quoted by Italy’s Autosprint. "I see a motivated and happy group of people, but as I said, we know that we are just beginning and we will still work to improve.
"But we are together as a team, which is a good starting point."
Team principal Arrivabene revealed that Kimi Raikkönen presented himself in a refreshed mode during the first part of the pre-season tests.
"He talks, he laughs! I asked him ’Are you sick?’ – began Arrivabene.
"Last year he did not get along with the car because the front (of the car) was not what he liked. But that is different with the new car. Whoever thinks that Kimi has become a di scontinued model overnight, is mistaken," he insisted."
"He is demonstrating that these days, he is feeling the car better and he is smiling. This is very, very strange. It is the real scoop of the weekend."
Arrivabene also talked about the enthusiasm that Kimi Raikkönen showed during the first two days of the test near Montmelo.
"Kimi was also on the ground to move the car and try to adjust something," he said.
"I asked him: 'What are you doing?' He said 'I was a mechanic'. This is the atmosphere in the team, all the guys around him were surprised to look at him and to hear him talking and talking and talking."
The Italian also said that Ferrari’s new pairing seemed to be the perfect one.
"Kimi is very motivated and he is getting very, very well with Seb [Vettel] and this is great."
According to inside sources Kimi Raikkönen already gets along very well with his new race engineers David Greenwood, who was chief engineer at Marussia.
