Raikkonen: Zero issues for Ferrari on Baku F1 Friday

Kimi Raikkonen says there were no issues for Ferrari during Friday’s Formula 1 practice running for the Azerbaijan Grand Prix despite appearing to lose track time in the morning.

Raikkonen managed just 10 laps in FP1, but bounced back in second practice to finish the day second-fastest, lapping just 0.069 seconds off Red Bull pace-setter Daniel Ricciardo.

The Finn’s car was shown up on jacks while Ferrari crew members completed work during the opening practice session, with initial reports suggesting that a rear brake issue had been found.

Raikkonen denied this was the case, though, saying Ferrari was simply making a setup change to his car that aided his rise up the timesheets in second practice.

“We didn’t have any problems this morning, but people wrote these things,” Raikkonen said.

“I wanted to have a different setup, and unfortunately it takes some time when you have certain things to change. I’d rather skip or lose track time in FP1 and then be ready for FP2.

“It was OK in the second session, so there were absolutely zero issues. There were changes that we do that take a long time.”

Asked about Ferrari’s long-run pace, Raikkonen said: “It looked OK, but it’s difficult to say. I really have no idea what the others did, but it felt pretty good.

“For sure there are still things to improve, but it wasn’t too bad.”