Lotus driver Kimi Raikkonen tops day 1 of the first pre-season test 2012 – Formula 1 news
It was the first day of the first pre-season test at Jerez and Kimi Raikkonen topped the charts with the fastest time of the day.
There has been much talk of Raikkonen’s readiness to cope with the pressures of the sport after a two year absence, but Raikkonen showed no signs of rustiness as he went on to set 1 minute and 19.670 seconds . Lotus was duly happy over their driver’s performance
and the car’s pace as well. Although Raikkonen has said that the best time on a test day means nothing and he is not giving it much credit. He added that if it was a race day then it might have meant something. Raikkonen completed a total of 75 laps.
Force India driver Paul di Resta was able to set the second best time on the day at 1 minute and 19.772 seconds and completed 101 laps during the day.
Nico Rosberg was not far behind and impressed everyone with the pace of his 2011 Mercedes. His teammate Michael Schumacher though took over the race seat from him in the afternoon and recorded the sixth fastest time.
The Red Bull started a bit delayed due to the late arrival of rear wing parts, but Mark Webber got into the act quickly and recorded the fourth fastest time of the day.
“It was a really silly little problem actually,” Adrian Newey explained the delay. “The rear wing assembly, we designed it to give a quick check over between the launch photography on Sunday and today. So that was late coming down and the fog at Jerez stopped
the aircraft landing and sent it to Seville. So we were stuck waiting for it to get from Seville to here.”
Daniel Ricciardo’s Toro Rosso stopped in the middle of the track as the engine suffered a drop in oil pressure and the protection system in place to prevent any incidents did exactly what it is supposed to and shut down the car. Toro Rosso explained that
it is nothing serious and can be fixed in no time.
One more incident occurred on the track as Kamui Kobayashi driving Sauber’s C31 stopped on the track due to insufficient fuel. The issue was probably part of a fuel consumption test. Kobayashi managed to complete 106 laps and recorded the seventh quickest
time of the day.
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