Formula 1

FERRARI STAY ON TOP AND KIMI GETS HIS FIRST TASTE OF THE E21 ON DAY THREE…

Kimi Räikkönen had his first taste of the E21 on track during the third day of testing in Jerez, Spain, ending the day with the 4th fastest time after a programme of aerodynamic assessment.

A crisp morning gave way to glorious blue skies as the team ran through a variety of exhaust evaluations. Running for Kimi ended early due to a clutch issue.

Kimi Räikkönen will take the wheel of the E21 for final day of the Jerez test tomorrow.

Kimi Räikkönen:
“It was good to get behind the wheel of a Formula 1 car again. The E21 feels quite good so far, even if the balance isn’t quite to my liking yet. That didn’t stop us going through the programme we wanted to do which had a lot of aero runs in it. We know the car can go faster, we were just running through what we needed to achieve. It’s a shame that we had a clutch issue at the end of the day, but that’s why we come testing so we can find these problems and fix them.”

Alan Permane, Trackside Operations Director:
“Although we haven’t covered as many laps as we have on the previous two days we have still have been very productive. We spent much of the morning testing various exhaust exit specifications for our Coandă system. The car isn’t yet fully to Kimi’s liking, but we improved this through the day. We still have work to do with the balance, which is something we’ll work on tomorrow. Running ended early for us with a clutch failure which we’re investigating, but overall we’ve had a productive day of aero and exhaust testing.”

Pos  Driver              Team            Time                Laps
 1.  Felipe Massa        Ferrari         1m17.879s           85
 2.  Nico Rosberg        Mercedes        1m18.766s  +0.887   148
 3.  Sebastian Vettel    Red Bull        1m19.052s  +1.173   102
 4.  Kimi Raikkonen      Lotus           1m19.200s  +1.321   40
 5.  Jean-Eric Vergne    Toro Rosso      1m19.247s  +1.368   85
 6.  James Rossiter      Force India     1m19.303s  +1.424   42
 7.  Jenson Button       McLaren         1m19.603s  +1.724   83
 8.  Esteban Gutierrez   Sauber          1m19.934s  +2.055   110
 9.  Max Chilton         Marussia        1m21.269s  +3.390   78
10.  Valtteri  Bottas    Williams        1m21.575s  +3.696   86
11.  Charles Pic         Caterham        1m22.352s  +4.473   57
12.  Paul di Resta       Force India     1m23.729s  +5.850   7