“Pretty normal Friday” for timesheet-topper Raikkonen

Kimi Raikkonen has shrugged off the importance of topping the times during Friday practice ahead of the Bahrain Grand Prix while also avoiding a grid penalty for a front-right wheel issue.

The Ferrari driver produced a 1m 29.817s to blitz the times during his qualifying simulation run which handed the Finn top spot on Friday practice in Bahrain. Raikkonen, whose pace impressed both on short and long runs, appears to have quickly gelled with the Ferrari SF71H but played down his timesheet-topping lap and preferred to focus on qualifying and the race in Bahrain after missing out on a shot at victory due to the Virtual Safety Car timing in Australia last month.

“I think if you purely look at the lap times it’s good but obviously it’s only Friday and there were things we started to learn, things we have to improve for tomorrow and then we will see where we are,” Raikkonen said. “But it wasn’t too bad, it was a pretty normal Friday for me.

“People want to know the lap times but it often doesn’t tell very much. It was a very normal Friday for us, as usual we don’t know what the others are doing, so for sure there are things to improve a bit, but so far it was okay.”

Raikkonen missed out on the final 10 minutes of track action in FP2 when he was forced to stop on track with a front-right wheel issue after a race practice pit stop problem. Raikkonen’s Ferrari mechanics were seen gesticulating when the Finn left the pits after a tyre change and was ordered to stop at Turn 2.

The 2007 F1 world champion avoided a potential grid penalty for the unsafe release after FIA race stewards judged him blameless for the incident while Ferrari were slapped with a €5,000 fine.

“I think it was the right front wheel,” he said. “Exiting Turn 2 I felt there was some vibration and then the team told me to slow down. I think the wheel remained a bit loose after we changed the tyres, unfortunately. It’s better to happen today than in the race.”