10/12/2021
NEWS STORY
Alfa Romeo Racing ORLEN completed the final Friday of practice of the season on the Yas Marina Circuit. Antonio Giovinazzi and Kimi Raikkonen displayed good pace and were able to complete their full programme of tests ahead of the race weekend, although the proceedings were halted in the closing moments of FP2 by an accident to Kimi, without any consequence for the driver.
99% of a positive day, then, with that 1% missing being addressed. The crew is already at work to restore the Finn's car to its original state ahead of tomorrow's qualifying session, while the engineers will focus on optimising the C41's performance overnight.
Kimi Raikkonen: "It had been a normal Friday until the last lap. We have been trying things, seeing what happens and what works, as we always do: we had finished nearly all our work when I had my accident. I just lost the rear in a place where there wasn't any run-off and went into the wall: these things happen. It was interesting to try the track after the modifications. Making changes is good and I can see why they were done, but I am not sure whether overtaking will be any easier. In the end, it is what it is, it's different and we'll have to adapt."
Antonio Giovinazzi: "We had a good start to our weekend and, overall, it was a good day. We made a decent improvement from FP1 to FP2 and if we can repeat it tonight, we should be in a good place for qualifying. The new track layout is quite cool, it's more fun to drive as they replaced slow chicanes, which weren't much fun in these cars, with some fast corners. I am not sure if this will help much with overtaking, but it's a lot faster. Tomorrow will be interesting: we want to build on the strong result from Jeddah, the fight in the midfield will be close and everything will hinge on hundredths of a second, but I am confident we can have a good day."
Check out our Friday gallery from Yas Marina, here.