Melbourne, 12 March – Shortly after his team-mate Sebastian Vettel had taken part in the inaugural FIA press conference, Kimi Raikkonen also met the media, at the back of the Scuderia Ferrari garage in Melbourne’s Albert Park paddock.
“It’s a new season, a new year and we start from zero,” was the Finn’s opening remark. “We will see how it goes. Over the winter the team has done a very good job to improve the package. The new car is better in all areas. As a team, everyone is working well together and it’s been a good winter. We feel better overall and I’m sure we are much better prepared for this year. But will we always get what we want? Only time will tell. We still have a lot of work to do to be where we really want to be, but we have to be happy with where we are after testing, compared to where we finished last year.”
Kimi would not be drawn on just how competitive he might be this year. “We must wait and see on Sunday,” he insisted. “I have no interest in starting guessing and in a couple of days we will at least get an idea where we are here. Then we can wait and see how we go in different races at different circuits.”
As for this first weekend, Kimi stressed that Albert Park is not representative of the majority of tracks. “It’s not like a normal, traditional circuit, it’s the first race of the season, so usually quite a lot happens in the race. The weather can also be a bit funny here, but hopefully everything will go smoothly for us and we can do our maximum in the race and then see where we end up. Tomorrow, we will see what the car feels like and then we can go from there. I hope we have a similar feeling here to what we had in testing and have no issues. That way we should get an okay result, but exactly where we will be is hard to say.”
Finally, he was asked for a thought on the fact that his former team-mate, Fernando Alonso, is having to miss this race, after his testing accident. “It’s not ideal for him and you never like to see anyone get hurt and I hope he will be back soon,” concluded Kimi. “But that’s part of the game; you can get hurt or have problems and miss a race.”
Quote: Boudica wrote in post #17Has anyone seen the prices for the F1 app? It is 3 times the price of last year.
I feel the same way but also for other reasons: now that apparently I will have great times to follow a GP, FoxSports3 LAT decides they won't broadcast it live!
And now we also have to pay for a membership in the F1 website?!?!
Someone get Bernie Ecclestone out of there or soon only the ones with Rolex watches will be able to follow F1! ... BTW I need a link!!! our broadcaster is not showing F1 live Anyone awake?
quoteAustralian GP: Nico Rosberg pips Lewis Hamilton in practice one By Ben Anderson
Nico Rosberg edged Mercedes team-mate Lewis Hamilton to top the first free practice session of the new Formula 1 season by less than half a tenth of a second.
Rosberg's first serious effort as the teams began their preparations for Sunday's Australian Grand Prix proved enough to top the session.
His best lap of 1m29.557s fell less than two tenths shy of the fastest lap of the entire weekend at last year's Albert Park race.
Reigning F1 world champion Hamilton languished in the lower half of the top 10 for the first part of the session, before clocking a 1m29.586s best to leap up to second.
No one else could get within a second of the Mercedes duo, but Williams driver Valtteri Bottas got closest, lapping 1.191s slower than Rosberg to finish the session third fastest.
Toro Rosso rookies Carlos Sainz Jr and Max Verstappen were fourth and fifth (separated by just 0.053s) for much of the session, before Ferrari new boy Sebastian Vettel split them with a late improvement.
His team-mate Kimi Raikkonen was eighth quickest, just behind the second Williams of Felipe Massa.
Pastor Maldonado began the new Mercedes-powered era at Lotus by setting the ninth fastest time, but team-mate Romain Grosjean failed to record a timed lap after his E23 required a change of its floor.
Red Bull's Daniel Ricciardo recovered from an early hydraulic problem and a brief spin to round out the top 10.
He complained of "aggressive" throttle response from the RB11's Renault engine, while team-mate Daniil Kvyat was concerned by a lack of assistance from the power unit in slowing the car down under braking.
Kvyat finished the session just a fraction of a second clear of Sergio Perez and Nico Hulkenberg, who are both making up for a late start to pre-season testing for Force India.
Jenson Button and Kevin Magnussen completed a combined 13 laps for McLaren-Honda, which curtailed its running early once the team discovered an engine problem.
Both McLarens lapped more than two seconds slower than the Force Indias and roughly five adrift of the pacesetting Mercedes.
Amid an ongoing legal wrangle with its former reserve driver Giedo van der Garde, Sauber did not run either of its cars in this session.
The team refused to comment on the exact reason for Felipe Nasr and Marcus Ericsson missing the session when contacted by AUTOSPORT.
Roberto Merhi and Will Stevens also skipped the first practice session of the new season for the revived Manor GP/Marussia squad.
After its 2014 computer hard-drives were 'wiped' (ready to be auctioned off when the team was in administration), it was unable to update its software in time for its revised '14 cars to run.
The team hopes to be ready in time to run in practice two later on Friday.
PRACTICE ONE TIMES:
Pos Driver Car Time Gap Laps 1 Nico Rosberg Mercedes 1m29.557s - 19 2 Lewis Hamilton Mercedes 1m29.586s 0.029s 19 3 Valtteri Bottas Williams/Mercedes 1m30.748s 1.191s 20 4 Carlos Sainz Jr. Toro Rosso/Renault 1m31.014s 1.457s 32 5 Sebastian Vettel Ferrari 1m31.029s 1.472s 13 6 Max Verstappen Toro Rosso/Renault 1m31.067s 1.510s 31 7 Felipe Massa Williams/Mercedes 1m31.188s 1.631s 19 8 Kimi Raikkonen Ferrari 1m31.310s 1.753s 14 9 Pastor Maldonado Lotus/Mercedes 1m31.451s 1.894s 22 10 Daniel Ricciardo Red Bull/Renault 1m31.570s 2.013s 9 11 Daniil Kvyat Red Bull/Renault 1m32.073s 2.516s 18 12 Sergio Perez Force India/Mercedes 1m32.247s 2.690s 22 13 Nico Hulkenberg Force India/Mercedes 1m32.261s 2.704s 19 14 Jenson Button McLaren/Honda 1m34.542s 4.985s 6 15 Kevin Magnussen McLaren/Honda 1m34.785s 5.228s 7 16 Romain Grosjean Lotus/Mercedes 2m17.782s 48.225s 5 Sauber and Manor did not leave the garages
I think Ferrari had a really good Friday. Kimi didn't do a good lap on his qualifying simulation, but his long run was really, really good! The soft tyres are holding up well.
Quote: Boudica wrote in post #17Has anyone seen the prices for the F1 app? It is 3 times the price of last year.
yes but what can you do? I need live timing.. so I paid would just be nice if it would also work then for that price!
the app should be connected to the website so you will get access on both if you paid once. but like everything this doesn't work yet either...
anyway back to racing Kimi's long run looked really good! I hope he will have good pace on the medium too. Pirelli said already that they could have brought the SS instead. Mercedes is clearly holding back, I just hope they won't be 1s or more ahead of all. and as we know from last year Williams will be faster in the race too. RB had some problems but expect them stronger too.
Print view
Thu Mar 12, 2015 1:46 pm
reply
Anyone awake?
), Bot, 5. Seb, 7. Kimi
Lets see....
would just be nice if it would also work then for that price! 
