Kimi Raikkonen: Alfa Romeo must "learn a lot" in Bahrain test

Alfa Romeo

Raikkonen: Alfa Romeo must "learn a lot" in Bahrain test

Alfa Romeo launched the C41 in Warsaw on Monday

Sam Hall

Monday 22 February 2021 18:10

Kimi Raikkonen believes Alfa Romeo must glean every last scrap of information from the limited three-day test in Bahrain if it is to show any sign of improvement in the new Formula 1 season.

Drivers and teams will have precious little time to become accustomed to the new cars as the test runs from March 12-14 at the International Circuit.

In a bid to cut costs in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic, teams agreed to a raft of cost-saving measures, including pushing the radical aerodynamic regulation changes back by a year to 2022 and carrying across a large percentage of 2020 machinery into the new year.

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Despite the team's prior knowledge of large parts of its car, Raikkonen insisted it cannot afford to waste a moment of testing.

“Roughly in one month's time with the first race everybody will see where everybody is," said Raikkonen.

"It is not many days before the first race so we will need to do a good three days [in testing], [run plenty of] laps, learn a lot from the car and see where we get.”

Raikkonen made his F1 debut 20 years ago, racing with his current team in its former guise as Sauber in 2001.

Conceding he enjoys the driving but has "never been a big fan of all the rest" that goes into being an F1 driver, the 41-year-old is at least looking forward to getting back on track again.

He added: “I’m excited for the year but it’s very unknown because we haven’t tried the car. There are obvious rule changes.

"Where we are going to be, we don’t know, but in a few weeks' time, we will see how things are running and the car is feeling.

“Hopefully we are better off than we were last year. We will do our best wherever we end up being.”