Kimi Raikkonen's last day of testing at
the Sakhir circuit in Bahrain was extremely troubled. At the
start of the action yesterday morning everything seemed to
go well, and Raikkonen undertook several stints to check the
different set ups. Just after 11:30 am the car started to
show up a problem with the KERS' cooling circuit and the
Finnish driver had to come to the pit box. Until then
Raikkonen had driven 40 laps, the fastest in a time of
1.33.108.
The stop to repair the KERS took more than three hours: just
after 3pm - the first lap was driven at 3:20pm - Raikkonen
came back on the track. Nevertheless there was one positive
aspect, as the Team was able to experiment with an emergency
in case of a KERS failure.
During the winter break lots of analytic
work was done and the Team has been profoundly trained as
far as the KERS is concerned. This knowledge could be used
today. The Team followed all procedures in a rigorous and
precise way, but especially under absolute safety. Obviously
Raikkonen and everybody else in the Ferrari pit box at
Sakhir and at the Gestione Sportiva in Maranello would have
preferred to stay out on the track, but this unexpected
incident was a useful experience for the future.
Just after the car was back on the track another unexpected
event occurred: two dogs decided to go for a walk on the
track and the stewards had to get out the red flag until the
dogs were caught. The last part of the day Kimi dedicated to
race simulations with a series of quite long stints and pit
stops with refuelling. Like Monday, yesterday saw the
session ending with start simulations from the grid.
The Finn from Ferrari was the fastest driver on the track.
Raikkonen drove his fastest lap in a time of 1.32.108,
followed by Trulli (Toyota) in 1.32.230 and with Klien (BMW)
third in 1.32.585. Meanwhile the Italian Trulli drove more
laps than his colleagues (149), while Raikkonen, despite the
KERS problem, drove 107, three more than Heidfeld.
"Until today the car's development went well, although we
were mainly concentrating on its behaviour and the tyres,"
Kimi said at the end of the day. "Today we had a problem
with the cooling system of the KERS, but these things can
happen during the tests. Anyway we drove many laps. The
whole car improved during these tests, but it's still too
early to say where we are compared to our competitors. I
think we have to wait until Melbourne for that. Today was
the first time I could get close to a car in front of me;
but I wasn't close enough to understand if the new
aerodynamics really make overtaking easier."
Scuderia Ferrari will proceed its eight
days of testing at the Sakhir today (Wednesday). Raikkonen
will be replaced by Felipe Massa who is taking over in the
cockpit of the F60.
