Kimi Raikkonen has started simulator work ahead of his return to Ferrari for the 2014 Formula 1 season.

The Finn, who won the 2007 world championship for the Scuderia, is now in his first week working at Ferrari since agreeing to return.

Ferrari has confirmed Raikkonen arrived at Maranello this morning and will spend three days working with the engineers and running in the simulator.

"It's good to be back at work," said Raikkonen.

"I began by getting used to all the new systems and procedures that we will use this year.

"From this point of view, the simulator is really very useful."

Raikkonen missed the final two races of the 2013 season in order to have back surgery.

He first visited Maranello the week before Christmas, and will stay until Wednesday on his latest visit.

But despite the fact he has not driven for Ferrari since the end of 2009 and the major rule changes for this season, Raikkonen insists his workload is not too intense.

"It's true there's lots to do but the workload is not much different to what it was in the past," said Raikkonen.

Kimi Raikkonen is currently in the middle of his first official week of work at Ferrari since announcing his return to the team for the 2014 Formula One season.

The former World Champion (pictured, from 2009) arrived in Maranello yesterday for what the Scuderia says will be three days of work both with the team’s engineers and in the simulator.

“It’s good to be back at work,” Raikkonen told Ferrari’s website yesterday. “I began by getting used to all the new systems and procedures that we will use this year. From this point of view, the simulator is really very useful.

“It’s true there’s lots to do, but the workload is not much different to what it was in the past. For me, these days in Maranello are also an opportunity to be with the team and spend a bit more time with my many friends here.”

Kimi Raikkonen was back in Ferrari colours this week for the first time since his acrimonious split from the Italian outfit.

The Finn parted company with Ferrari at the end of the 2009 season after the Maranello team bought him out of the remainder of his contract.
Raikkonen, who won his only Formula One title with the famous constructor in 2007, was replaced by Fernando Alonso.

But after agreeing a surprise return to Italy following a turbulent two-year spell with Lotus -- which ended abruptly amid claims the Finn hadn't been paid -- Raikkonen will now line up alongside Alonso in 2014.
"It's good to be back at work," Raikkonen, who won last year's season-opening Australian Grand Prix, said.
Speaking to the Ferrari website, the 34-year-old added: "I began by getting used to all the new systems and procedures that we will use this year. From this point of view, the simulator is really very useful.


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Finn racing driver Kimi Raikkonen is not expecting any issues when he teams up with new race engineer Antonio Spagnolo this season.

The former Lotus man is making his return to Ferrari after a four-year absence, and the 34-year-old has admitted that he is looking forward to forming a successful partnership with Spagnolo. "We worked two years with him with data, he was the data engineer for me," he said. the 2007 World Champion.

"I know him from that time already so basically it wasn't too difficult and I've seen him at some races and we spoke to each other in the paddock last year," Raikkonen added. "For him also it's a bit of a new challenge but he knows the systems and has a lot of experience, I think it should be fine," he continued.

"Obviously we have to start from somewhere and build things together but I don't see any problems or why it wouldn't be good, all new and exciting."

Read more at: http://www.clubcall.com/formula-1/raikkonen-in-exciting-challenge-1697904.html

Four seasons after he departed the Scuderia under a cloud, to be replaced with a degree of irony by his new team-mate Fernando Alonso, the Finn has arrived back as F1 undergoes its biggest technical change in, arguably, a quarter of a century.

According to Raikkonen, little has changed at Maranello during the intervening period but it sounds as though home comforts are something the 2007 World Champion might welcome as he starts getting to grips with Ferrari's new F14 T - V6 turbo hybrid engine and all - in Spain next week.

The first pre-season test is where teams hope to familiarise themselves with their new cars but according to Raikkonen, "I think it's going to be a bit more of an unknown situation than in many other years. Now, there's changes on engines and gearboxes and all the electronics, so we have to see how it goes.

"Hopefully, we have no problems and can run the car and check the systems, do normal running that is necessary in the first test every year and get through the programme as smoothly as we can.

"But it's very difficult to say because there's so many new unknowns. Before we run the car next week, we really don't know what to expect."

Two-time Formula One world champion Fernando Alonso has stressed he is happy to work alongside Kimi Raikkonen as the Finn returns to Ferrari after a five-year absence.

Raikkonen was the last man to win the drivers' championship with the Italian team back in 2007 as Alonso's four-year spell has coincided with Sebastian Vettel and Red Bull's reign of dominance.

The Spaniard could at least be assured of his superiority within his own team in recent years, but with the more decorated Raikkonen having replaced Felipe Massa there has been no clear word out of the team's headquarters in Maranello over who will be their number one driver.

It is not the first time that Alonso has been challenged by the arrival of a teammate as he was usurped by an inexperienced Lewis Hamilton during an unhappy one season stay at McLaren in 2007.

Mark Blundell is to work with Kimi Raikkonen, the Finn's management and advisors and will now 'represent' and help manage the commercial rights for the 2007 F1 world champion through his company, MB Partners, it has been announced.

Raikkonen returns to Ferrari this year to join Fernando Alonso for the first of two seasons. He left the team and F1 in 2009 for a career in the World Rally Championship, before heading back to F1 with Lotus in 2012. Raikkonen achieved Lotus F1's first race win at the 2012 Abu Dhabi Grand Prix and last year secured another victory and a further seven podiums, to finish fifth in the championship standings.

“I have known Kimi's management and advisors for a very long time,” said Blundell, who raced for Brabham, Ligier, Tyrrell and McLaren during his stint in F1 from 1991-1995, “and as such, we are working closely together on behalf of Kimi.”

“He is without a doubt one of the best F1 drivers on the grid,” added the former Crash.net columnist, “and combined with Ferrari is a powerful commercial proposition.”

Ferrari's Kimi Raikkonen was fastest as Lewis Hamilton crashed his Mercedes on an otherwise quiet opening day to Formula One's pre-season testing in Jerez, southern Spain on Tuesday.
It was a frustrating start, though, for four-time world champion Sebastian Vettel, as he was only able to complete three laps, and former world champion Jenson Button as the new McLaren MP4-29 failed to make it out of the garage.

Raikkonen, who is making his return to Ferrari after a three-year spell between 2007 and 2009 which saw him win the world drivers title in his first season with them, was also able to complete the most laps with 31 of the paltry 93 combined total.

And the Finn said getting used to a new car, modelled to comply with a series of new technical regulations, is the primary objective of first week back racing with the Italian team.


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Circuit: Jerez circuit - 4.428 km Driver: Kimi Raikkonen Car: Ferrari F14 T Weather: air temperature 9/14°C, track temperature 10/15 °C. Light rain in the morning, sunny and cloudy in the afternoon. Laps/Kms completed: 47/208 Best time: 1:24.812 

Second day of testing at the Jerez de la Frontera circuit for Kimi Raikkonen at the wheel of the F14 T. 

Because of the wet start to the day, the morning programme began with the testing requested by Pirelli, relating to development of their wet weather tyres. The Scuderia was quickly able to assess the intermediate tyres, thus making the most of the time remaining and the progressively drying track to begin work on the car in preparation for the afternoon’s programme. 

By the end of the day, Raikkonen had managed to complete a total of 47 laps, the fastest in a time of 1.24.812. He continued the task of checking the car’s functionality as well as trying a few set-up changes. 

"Every time we go out on track we learn something new" - said Kimi to www.ferrari.com - "This week the times don’t matter and the only thing that does is to do a good number of laps without any problems and fortunately, we have managed that on both days. The team is working hard and at the next test in Bahrain, we will continue to improve." 

Testing continues at this circuit tomorrow, when Fernando Alonso will make his season debut on track.

Ferrari's 2014 race car got its first bite of action in the opening set of Formula One pre-season tests at the Spanish circuit of Jerez on Tuesday.

There was excitement at seeing the new F14-T, which was unveiled at Ferrari's Maranello headquarters at the weekend, make its first moves and at seeing former world champion Kimi Raikkonen back behind the wheel.

But the Italian team's thoughts remained with their former driver and seven-time world champion Michael Schumacher, who has been in a coma since suffering head injuries in a skiing accident in France almost a month ago.

Indeed, the F14-T carried the message "Forza Michael" as it made its debut in Jerez.

Ferrari have also started publishing on their website the first of 72 messages of support for Schumacher to represent each of his grand prix wins with them between 1996 and 2006.

The team are hoping that the F14-T will enable them to end a long dry run, with their last constructor's championship win dating to 2008 and the last drivers' title going back to when Finn Raikkonen won in 2007 during his first stint with the team.

Ferrari technical director James Allison says he is “reasonably happy” with where the team is after two days of pre-season testing.

Kimi Raikkonen was quickest on the opening day of the first day at Jerez and followed that up with the second quickest time on Wednesday while completing 47 laps. Asked how happy he was with the progress made by Ferrari in terms of understanding its car and ironing out problems, Allison admitted it had been an encouraging start.

“I'm reasonably happy by what we've seen so far,” Allison said. “I don't think there are any killers that we've uncovered. Of course the faults list is not a short one – it never is with a new car – but we are able to keep getting out of the garage and going round the laps and our relative lack of laps compared with the V8 era is not about the fundamental reliability of the package it's about us making sure we don't make mistakes with what we're programming in to it.”

Allison also had praise for the work done by the engine division at Ferrari in supplying the design team with a well-packaged power unit in order to allow greater flexibility with the F14-T's aerodynamics.

“The overall philosophy of the car is, on the power unit side, that everybody has got the same amount of fuel; whoever can make the engine most efficient will have the most power, so the engine guys have been working long and hard for that. At the same time they've been aggressive and bending over backwards for us on the chassis side to make sure they produce an engine that is packageable, that allows itself to be cooled with radiators that are manageably packageable on the car. You see our car has got quite a neat cooling package and the bodywork is quite small – that's part of what the engine guys have done to provide that for us.

The Finn topped the times on the opening day of running at Jerez and ended day two second fastest to McLaren's Jenson Button.

More encouraging to Ferrari than the times, however, is the fact that the F14 T has completed 78 laps over the opening two days.

"I am reasonably happy with what we have seen so far," said Allison. "I don't think there are any killers we have uncovered.

"The fault list is not a short one, it never is with a new car, but we are able to keep going out of the garage and doing the laps.

"Our relative lack of laps compared with the V8 era is not about the fundamental reliability of the package, it is about us making sure we don't make mistakes."

Allison said the lack of running throughout the field compared to 12 months ago was evidence not of poor reliability but simply the complication of the new rules.

"The point of these first two days is to get running, get the car programmed with the gazillion of numbers that you need to make it do its thing, and to make sure that the really basic building blocks of the car are correct," he said.

Having been forced to skip the first day of Formula 1 pre-season testing, Jenson Button marked the McLaren-Mercedes MP4-29's track debut by going quickest on day two at Jerez.

The British driver completed 43 laps to edge out day one pace setter Kimi Raikkonen by just over six tenths, while Williams' Valtteri Bottas, Nico Rosberg and Sergio Perez ensured Mercedes-powered cars took up four of the top five positions.

By contrast, Renault had a disappointing day with Red Bull Racing and Caterham suffering issues, while Scuderia Toro Rosso didn't make it out on track at all. So far Renault-powered cars have completed just 38 laps in two days, compared with Mercedes on 212 and Ferrari on 100.

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1. Jenson Button Britain McLaren-Mercedes 1min 24.165secs
2. Kimi Raikkonen Finland Ferrari-Ferrari 1min 24.812secs
3. Valtteri Bottas Finland Williams-Mercedes 1min 25.344secs
4. Nico Rosberg Germany Mercedes-Mercedes 1min 25.588secs
5. Sergio Perez Mexico Force India-Mercedes 1min 28.376secs
6. Esteban Gutierrez Mexico Sauber-Ferrari 1min 33.270secs
7. Marcus Ericsson Sweden Caterham-Renault 1min 37.975secs
8. Sebastian Vettel Germany Red Bull-Renault 1min 38.320secs

After a winter of anticipation, Formula One racing’s new generation of 1.6-litre turbocharged cars were put through their paces for the first time on Tuesday as pre-season testing got under way in Jerez.

At the end of a day that saw limited running as teams battled to get to grips with the radically different systems on their new machines, Ferrari’s Kimi Raikkonen emerged at the top of the timesheets in Spain.

Raikkonen completed 31 laps - the most of anyone - and set a best time of 1m 27.104s as the Italian team did some aerodynamic mapping and checked the functionality of the F14 T’s on-board systems.

“We had a lot of new things to learn today,” said the Finn. "Even if we would have liked to do more laps, I think that for a first day it was alright. Towards the end, when the track was damp, we chose not to take any risks. Now we have a lot of work ahead of us, but all in all, we are pleased with our first day.”

The Finn leapfrogged Lewis Hamilton's Mercedes one hour from the day's end, with the Briton's session ending prematurely after a front wing failure sent him crashing into the Turn 1 barriers.

Hamilton had previously been the first man to venture out on track and the first man to set a competitive time, and was more than five seconds clear at the head of the timesheets when he suffered the accident.
He was unable to return, but remained upbeat about the team's day one showing.

In contrast, Red Bull's reigning champion Sebastian Vettel managed just three installation laps in the final minutes of the day, while McLaren failed to get out at all.

At the time of Hamilton's crash, which came at midday, Jean-Eric Vergne had been Hamilton's closest challenger in terms of both lap count and time, even if his deficit was sizeable.

Kimi Raikkonen says he was not focusing on speed at all despite setting the fastest time for Ferrari on the opening day of the first test at Jerez.

Tuesday's running was punctuated by red flags and spells without a car on track as all the teams attempted to get to grips with the new V6 turbo engines for 2014. However, Mercedes looked strong early on before a front wing failure for Lewis Hamilton, and then Raikkonen went on to complete the most laps of the day en-route to the quickest time.

Although he topped the timesheets by almost three quarters of a second from Hamilton, Raikkonen insisted the team had no interest on pushing the car at the first test.

“The lap times don't mean anything right now, we just want to learn from the car and make it run as well as we can,” Raikkonen said. “We will see in Bahrain at some point what kind of speed we do. It doesn't matter what happened last year, it's a completely different game now.

“It's not such a big difference to drive. In an ideal world when we get everything working as we want – as the plan is – I don't think that it's an awful lot different. But obviously now when everything is new, very cold conditions, not so much grip then the circuit is a bit trickier and we don't push much, but it's still very similar driving than before.”

And Raikkonen the team had found getting the different systems in the car to work in harmony had proven the toughest task on the opening day.

Ferrari’s Kimi Raikkonen may have topped the charts in the opening day of Formula One preseason testing today at Jerez, but the former World Champion indicated that speed is not the top priority for the Scuderia.

The same could be said for the other teams in the paddock as well, considering the massive technical shift that has taken place ahead of the 2014 season.

Raikkonen logged a 1 minute, 27.104-second lap in the Ferrari F14 T, enough to out-hustle another ex-World Champion in Lewis Hamilton of Mercedes (1:27.820) for P1 at the end of the day.

However, as you’d probably expect from Raikkonen, he promptly downplayed that aspect from an opening day that saw only 93 combined laps turned.

“The biggest challenge is just getting all the things working as we want,” he said according to Agence France-Presse. “Everyone wants to see more laps and obviously, we want to do more laps, but it is pretty normal with such a big change. It will take time before we can all go at 100 percent.”

The Finn managed to top the timesheets after completing 31 laps in his new Ferrari, on a day when many of his potential title rivals hit trouble.
McLaren failed to run at all, Red Bull only managed three laps at the end of the day and Mercedes had to cut short its running after Lewis Hamilton crashed.
But rather than view the difficult first day of the new turbo cars as something to be worried about, Raikkonen thinks it was to be expected.
"For sure everybody wants to see more laps and we want to do more laps, but it is pretty normal with such a big change," said Raikkonen.
"It will take a little bit of time before we can run 100 per cent all the time and not have issues.
"I think we have started pretty okay."
Raikkonen reckons his day had been more normal than it appeared from the outside, and did not think the new cars were particularly different to drive compared to last year's V8-powered machines.
"I think the biggest challenge is getting all the new stuff working as we want, and working together," he explained.

As Kimi Raikkonen lines up alongside Fernando Alonso at Ferrari, both drivers have made no secret of the fact that they are targeting the drivers’ championship.

Alonso has been at the head for the team for four years, finishing second in the championship behind Red Bull’s Sebastian Vettel in three of them.

He had the luxury of priority over his team mate, Felipe Massa during that time, but the Spaniard’s longevity of service cuts no ice with Raikkonen, who was Ferrari’s last Championship-winning driver in 2007, and rejoined the team after leaving Lotus just ahead of the end of last season.

The pairing is the strongest driver line-up on the grid, and their rivalry may pose a challenge for Ferrari team boss Stefano Domencali.

Alonso has already proved he is no pushover, after relationships became strained during 2013.

However both drivers have claimed that they plan their rivalry to be an open and amicable competition.

Maranello, Italy - Former world champions Fernando Alsonso and Kimi Raikkonen on Saturday helped unveil Ferrari's new F14-T car that the Italian team hopes to power to Formula One glory in this year.

Ferrari's 2014 model, unveiled at the Scuderia's Maranello headquarters, features a number of modifications to fall in line with the many changes introduced for the new season by the International Automobile Federation.

The 1.6-litre, turbo V6-powered F14-T, its name chosen in a vote of more than a million fans, was launched on the team website ahead of pre-season testing that starts in Jerez, southern Spain, on Tuesday, 28 January.

Its 'broken' nose, with a pronounced hump in the middle section before drooping wide and low, offered a different solution to rival offerings seen so far - more dolphin than anteater.

If far from the most beautiful car produced by the most glamorous of teams, it need only be a winner to be loved after a difficult 2013 for Ferrari.

Ferrari's 2014 model, unveiled at the Scuderia's Maranello headquarters, features a number of modifications to fall in line with the many changes introduced for the new season by the International Automobile Federation (FIA).
According to Sport24, the F14-T is powered by a 1.6 litre, turbo V6 power engine and notably features a new-look nose, which differs significantly to those seen so far on other 2014 cars.
The report mentioned that Raikkonen's return alongside Alonso, coupled with the new changes, is expected to herald a new beginning for Ferrari as they seek to loosen Red Bull ace Sebastian Vettel's four-year stranglehold on the title.
For Ferrari president Luca di Montezemolo, only a victory will do at the end of the season, saying that they are fed of finishing as runner-ups.
Alonso, who won two world titles with Renault in 2005 and 2006, replaced Raikkonen at Ferrari in 2010, and his contract with Ferrari expires at the end of this year.

As talkative as ever, Kimi Raikkonen believes he and teammate Fernando Alonso are "more than capable" of fighting for the championship.
"It's nice to come back to Ferrari, the place where I won my championship," he says in a video marking the launch of the Ferrari F14 T. "Obviously the aim is the same, we want to do the best that we can, try to win races, try to win world championships. Time will tell when we will have them.
"Did I miss F1, not really, it was nice to have a break," he says, referring to the fact that he hasn't driven in anger since last year's Abu Dhabi Grand Prix.
"I had to have a small operation done," he continues, referring to his infamous back problem, "so, I didn't really have a choice and I wanted to be one-hundred percent as pain free as possible for the coming season, it was the only choice really, a good time to have this thing done.
"I hope we're going to be the strongest team this year, obviously, we will both try very hard. We both want to win and time will tell what will happen if we bring the championships back to Ferrari.

A typically laconic Kimi Raikkonen has claimed that he didn't mid missing the final two grands prix of 2013, and expects to be in good shape for the coming season as a result.

The Finn, speaking in a video to accompany the launch of Ferrari's new F14-T, said that his break had allowed him more time to recover from an essential back operation, even though many believed that his absence had been driven by the money problems he had with previous employer Lotus. Although the team insisted that the matter was being addressed, Raikkonen claimed that he had not been paid up to the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix, and subsequently missed both the US and Brazilian races.

It is true that walking away from Lotus allowed Raikkonen to go under the knife to address an old back injury that had flared up a couple of races previously, and the 2007 world champion is confident that he will now be ready to begin testing his new mount when the pre-season officially gets underway at Jerez on Tuesday. The Finn is scheduled to give the F14-T its debut in southern Spain before handing over to new team-mate Fernando Alonso for the final two days of the session.

“Did I miss driving an F1 car? Not really...,” he said, “It was nice to have a break as I had to have a small operation, so I didn't really have a choice as I wanted to be 100 per cent as pain free as possible for the coming season. I think it was a good choice - the best time to have this thing done. I think we'll get enough running in F1 this season.”

Kimi Raikkonen says there is no way of telling yet how his relationship with 2014 Ferrari Formula 1 team-mate Fernando Alonso will bear up to the heat of competition.

Although both drivers are excited about what their partnership should deliver, there are concerns that it could produce some tense moments if they end up battling wheel-to-wheel.

Ferrari president Luca di Montezemolo admitted before Christmas that the line-up had its dangers, but equally he was sure both men would do what was best for the team.

Speaking to media after the launch of the new F14 T on Saturday, Raikkonen said the relationship between him and Alonso was good now - but admitted that things could be different when they are fighting on track.

"I don't think there is any way of telling things right now," said the Finn, who is now fully recovered from the back issues that he suffered last year.

 What Raikkonen must do to succeed at Ferrari

"Every situation is different, but we know what we have to do.

"We have said before, we are going to race against each other like every year - it doesn't matter who is your team-mate.

"We have a respect against each other and we try to come out on top, but we know what the team expects from us and time will tell what happens.

"There is a lot of talk from outside of all the problems and all those kinds of things, but inside the team we have a good feeling.

"We have to wait and see how it goes, and hopefully we can bring both titles back to the team."

The car with which Fernando Alonso and Kimi Raikkonen will fly the Scuderia Ferrari flag in this year’s Formula 1 World Championship will be called the F14 T. Prancing Horse fans from around the globe chose the name in a ballot that’s run on line from 15 January to midnight last night.
“It’s nice to know the name of the car has been chosen by our fans,” Stefano Domenicali told www.ferrari.com. “The amazing number of votes shows just how popular Ferrari has always been and this will be, as always, a further impetus for us to do well this year!”
There was a total of 1,123,741 votes and the winning margin was just 19,104 or 1.7%, after a very close fight with F166 Turbo. The other three names on the list fared less well: third was F14 Scuderia (18.8%), followed by F14 Maranello (12.3%) and F616 (4.8%.)
The votes sent to the special new car site really came in from all four corners of the globe, 208 countries to be precise, over the nine days on which it was open. Italy topped the list, followed by Spain, the United States, the United Kingdom and France. Finland showed well in eighth, while among the BRICS nations, Russia came out on top in seventh, ahead of Brazil eleventh, India thirteenth, China fifteenth and South Africa thirty first. There were some last minute new entries, worth noting the presence of Cuba, Greenland, Palau and Equatorial Guinea. There’s no other way of describing it, the ballot to name the new Ferrari the F14 T has been a smash hit.

Kimi Raikkonen is notoriously terse yet interesting with his simple answers to questions regarding anything to do with Formula One. As he prepares for his first season back at Ferrari since 2009, Raikkonen said as drivers, the new type of cars coming into play for 2014 shouldn’t require too much of a different driving style.

“My feeling is that it’s not going to be as different as people think, but I might be wrong,” he said in a video interview posted to Ferrari’s website. ”Hopefully we’ll find out that it’s pretty simple. We have new buttons and new things to follow, but let’s wait and see.”

Ferrari will hit the ground running later this week with its launch on Saturday, January 25. Fans can still vote on the name of the chassis.

An an exclusive column for AUTOSPORT, double world champion MIKA HAKKINEN gives his view on Kimi Raikkonen's Ferrari return and explains why he rates Valtteri Bottas so highly