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Race engineer Mark Slade praises Kimi Räikkönen's skills in improvement of the car's settings
Slade has worked as race engineer for Raikkonen in McLaren and Lotus.
- Kimi's feedback is excellent. He is one of the most punctual drivers with whom I have ever worked with. He makes my job very easy. He tells you what is wrong with the car and I will offer a solutions to fix it. We will together decide which is the approach we choose, and then implement it, Slade said on MTV3's live TV broadcast from Shanghai paddock.
Taciturnity is a distinct advantage when improvements must be found in the car.
- With Kimi we get the car to the best setup faster than with some of the other drivers, who speaks perhaps more, but are not able to analyze at the same precision, what in the car is right or wrong, Slade says. Source: MTV3Courtesy: reppo
The afternoon's tropical rain has just wet the paddock in Sepang. The team-premises roof is still filled with rain. Under the roof stands Kimi Räikkönen's race engineer Mark Slade.
The race engineer's body language says it all: the team is doing well - no matter what the weather is.
How different was the Kimi that became Slade's working buddy?
– There is no difference between this Kimi and the Kimi who was in McLaren. The old Kimi was fantastic and this Kimi is just as fantastic, Slade praised.
– We just put our gloves on and the job gets done: he always gives the same accurate feedback, he always goes fast, he is always cool and he can handle almost any situation that comes up in the race.
In Melbourne Räikkönen's problem with the visor affected the race result.
– Kimi had problems with the visor. He changed it. Our schedule was very tight so we didn't have time enough to change the visor and do the necessary amount of laps.
– Unfortunately Kimi made a mistake on the lap which would have been good enough to take him to Q2. I hadn't updated the time that was left. When Kimi slowed down after the mistake we missed one lap. It was a very stupid situation, Slade said.
Lotus-Renault's E20 -car has succeeded all expectations.
– I am really impressed over the car. I believe that our whole team is pleasantly surprised over it's competitiveness. You always hope that you get a quick car on the track. It was fast in tests but we approached the opening race so that we would see where we are. We had just as good pace in Australia as we had in the tests.
– Hopefully the same pace is also in the upcoming races.
- The development program is going on in the factory. Kimi came back from rally and Romain Grosjean starts his career all over again. This is totally super for both of them - what a fantastic opportunity to make results! The whole team is excited over it, Slade said.
– Kimi's race pace was in place and his quali-pace would also had been in place. We just didn't get to show it in Melbourne.
The Lotus-car's speed on straights is very good and on top of that the car also works very well in the many fast corners Sepang has.
Turun Sanomat, Kuala Lumpur
HEIKKI KULTACourtesy: Nicole
Kimi Räikkönen is pleased now that he got Mark Slade as his own race engineer to Lotus
Räikkönen and Slade already worked together in McLaren. Now Slade will switch from Mercedes to Lotus starting from the last testing session before the opening race.
- I wanted him. Of course many things have to succeed in order for that to happen. Fortunately he came. I have a good engineer right now also, but Mark because I know him and he knows what I want, Räikkönen told MTV3.
- He has worked here before so I'm sure it's easier to start with him in a new team when he already has information about the team, Kimi justified.
Courtesy: Nicole
Kimi Räikkönen will have a familiar race engineer for his return to Formula 1 this year. Finnish reports in Turun Sanomat and the television broadcaster MTV3 claim that the 2007 world champion will work with Mark Slade.
Slade, recently at Mercedes GP working alongside Michael Schumacher, was Räikkönen’s race engineer at McLaren years ago. Slade also previously worked as a race engineer to Mika Hakkinen and Heikki Kovalainen.
Räikkönen will start working together with his engineer at Barcelona at the last test before Melbourne. “I wanted him and I am pleased that it worked out,” Räikkönen confirmed.
In other news, Eric Boullier has denied rumours Räikkönen is a shareholder in the Lotus team. It was reported that the 2007 world champion’s retainer this year was subsidised by owner Genii granting the returning F1 driver a small slice of the Enstone based team.
“He has no shareholding. It is complete nonsense,” Boullier is quoted by MTV3.
“Räikkönen has a two-year contract as driver,” he added. “Genii Capital holds 100 per cent of the team.”
Boullier also dismissed suggestions Räikkönen, whose teammate is the reigning GP2 champion Romain Grosjean, is Lotus’ obvious number one driver.
“There is no such thing in the contract,” he said.
Source: F1Zone.net
Andrea Stella who has worked with Räikkönen, Alonso and Michael Schumacher, compared them in formulasantander.com-web magazine's interview and in his comparison he mentioned Räikkönen at the end and thought a while about how to put his words:
- Kimi... I would say that Kimi is the best in certain circumstances, but only in certain. He is instinctive.
Stella was asked how the talkative Italian got along with the quiet Räikkönen. According to stories Räikkönen didn't want to talk with Stella during races.
- I have to correct this general opinion of Kimi. When a driver is in the car, he needs certain information that he can't get by himself from the car. It's better to say one word too much than too little. Of course when I said one word too much to Kimi, that he has to push harder and give it his all, he replied by saying that he is already pushing hard with all he has.
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Courtesy: Nicole
Kimi Räikkönen’s race-engineer, Cedric Mazenq, in Citroen Junior Team thanks the Finnish driver for giving very detailed feedback on the rally-car’s settings. In F1 Räikkönen is used to set up his car very precisely. - He notices a lot of details because he has learnt in F1 to do detailed work. He is able to help the team improve the car, Mazenq says to MTV3 about what kind of first-impression Räikkönen gave him. Citroen-team has offered in Arctic-rally many different kinds of set-up options for Räikkönen to try out so that the Iceman gets experience on what kind of adjustments are best for him. - This rally is a test for Kimi. It is follow-up for the test we drove last week in Jyväskylä area. The goal of this rally is to find the initial settings for the Swedish WRC-rally, Mazenq emphasizes. For Arctic-rally the Citroen-team’s goal has been to make Kimi a car that is the easiest possible to drive. - In the beginning the most important for him is that he gets confidence in his car. This is a new world for him. We do our best so that we help him learn about the car, the route and the notes. There are a lot of differences between rally and F1 but he is taking them with an open mind, Mazenq tells. Source: MTV3Courtesy: Leijona @OF
Slade has worked as race engineer for Raikkonen in McLaren and Lotus.
