Raikkonen: No different feeling at Alfa compared to Ferrari

Kimi Raikkonen says his transition into the Alfa Romeo Racing Formula 1 squad has been easy as it does not feel any different compared to his time at Ferrari. 

The Finn has returned to the team he made his F1 debut with this year after swapping seats with Ferrari protege Charles Leclerc, who was promoted to the Scuderia following an impressive rookie campaign with the former Sauber outfit. 

Raikkonen said he had “no doubts” about changing teams and has been encouraged by the smooth start to life at Alfa Romeo. 

“It’s a different team but when I’m driving I don’t feel any difference in that way,” Raikkonen explained. 

“I had no doubts about changing teams, I’ve been in different teams and it can be difficult to get things the way we like, but so far it has been an easy transition. 

“It’s a great group of people, not as big as my previous team, but we have very good people and everything has been running nicely. I’m enjoying it.” 

Alfa Romeo has made a strong start to pre-season testing in Barcelona, though Raikkonen has been keen to play down expectations for the upcoming season. 

“I don’t think there’s a certain position I’m aiming for,” Raikkonen responded when asked what his personal targets were for 2019. 

“As long as we do the maximum we all can, then I have no doubt the results will come. What the end result will be, that’s impossible to say, as we don’t know what the others are doing. 

“The aim is to do the maximum for ourselves and seeing how they’ve been working on the car and what they’ve been producing over the winter, everything seems to be matching what we expected and I have no doubt we can improve. 

“Where that is going to take us, I have no idea, I think nobody knows - even after testing - where everybody is. We’ll see it in the first races, do the best we can, but we’re obviously aiming high and we’ll see what we can get.”