The team have produced a very nice car - as Ferrari continue to show strong pace on day 1 in Barcelona

(© Ben Johnston 2015)

Scuderia Ferrari’s Kimi Raikkonen continued to show that the SF15-T is a huge improvement on last year’s car as the Finn ending the opening day of the first Barcelona test in second place behind the Lotus F1 Team’s Pastor Maldonado.

The Iceman completed 58 laps of the Barcelona Circuit De Catalunya with a fastest time of 1m 25.167s.

Ferrari’s programme for the day consisted of systems checks, along with set up work, tyre testing and conducting a number of long runs. Raikkonen used the Pirelli Hard, Medium and the prototype Medium compound tyre over the course of the day and speaking following the day of running the Finn stated:

'It’s not that different from Jerez, we don’t know about the fuel other cars had, and some of them were on soft tyres. We keep doing our stuff, have made our plan and try to follow it. The car is a completely different story from last year’s, we’ve still got a long way ahead of us but the team is working well and has produced a very nice car.'

Scuderia Ferrari Technical Director James Allison stated:

'Overall we are content with the day, happy because the work we’ve been doing in learning how the car responds to set-up changes was very satisfactory, less happy with the laps count for the day. I hope that in the remaining days we get some more mileage under our belt'

Raikkonen will conclude his programme in the SF15-T on Friday before Sebastian Vettel takes over for the weekend. The German has been working at the team’s HQ in Maranello over the past few days in preparation for his time in the car.

© Ben Johnston 2015