24/01/2012
NEWS STORY
Kimi Raikkonen has completed his second and final day of running at the Circuito Ricardo Tormo in Valencia in preparation for his return to F1 with Lotus.
The Finnish driver continued where he left off yesterday, completing a further 91 laps to make a total of 171 laps over the course of the two days, the equivalent of more than two Grands Prix race distances.
"It went well today and overall the two days have been helped me a lot," said Raikkonen. "Even though I was using a two year-old car and the Pirelli demonstration tyres, I learnt about working with the team and the engineers which means I can focus on the new car once we get to Jerez for the first official test. It was great to be driving an F1 car again and from that respect I feel very positive."
"We enjoyed another good day," added Trackside Operations Engineer, Alan Permane. "The morning was spent doing setup work in particular with front and rear cambers. In the afternoon we ran very low fuel qualifying simulations with two new sets of tyres followed by a 27 lap run starting with a full tank of fuel. Kimi's pace improved from yesterday as we would expect and we completed several start, pitstop and clutch simulations. We were even able to finish early as we completed our programme ahead of time. Overall it has been a productive and valuable two days."