Kimi Raikkonen says Mercedes might surprise quite a few people in 2013 – Formula 1 news
Lotus driver Kimi Raikkonen has said that Mercedes might surprise quite a few people in the 2013 Formula 1 season after seeing their performance in the pre-season testing.
The Brackley based team had a successful pre-season testing programme during the preceding season. Contrarily, they failed to make the in-season developments in their car due to which their drivers Michael Schumacher and Nico Rosberg could not score points
with consistency.
However, it seems that the Silver Arrows have learnt from their mistakes and have developed a competent car for this season as their new driver, Lewis Hamilton has shown impressive pace in all the three tests.
Hamilton and his teammate, Nico Rosberg set the quickest times on the last two days of the final test held at Circuit de Catalunya in Barcelona. Therefore, Raikkonen has said that Mercedes can give a surprise to some contenders in this season.
“For sure at least we would have made it close, but it doesn't really matter if we made the time here or not,” Raikkonen said. “Hopefully we can be fast at the first races.”
“Mercedes might surprise quite a few people, but we've seen before last winter they were strong here and then it was a bit of surprise they were not strong in the races. We will have to see,” he said.
In addition, he said that they are looking forward to come up stronger right from the start of this season for which they are working very hard. Besides, he expressed that he is very much satisfied with their new car’s development and is positively aiming
to perform better in this year’s championship.
Nevertheless, he asserted that they still need to work on few things so as to score competitive points with consistency in this season.
“If we can keep the consistency and add a bit more speed and a better result at the beginning of the year it will hopefully give us a better chance,” he added.
The Enstone based team struggled with their qualifying pace in the last season. Let’s see whether they will be able to enhance their qualifying pace or not and how the Fin and his teammate, Romain Grosjean perform in this season.
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