Raikkonen tests GP3 car in Barcelona

2013 F1 season

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Kimi Raikkonen tested a GP3 car at the Circuit de Catalunya today.

The 2007 world champion did 58 laps in a GP3/13 car belonging to Koiranen GP. He set a best time of 1’34.780, eight seconds off his pace in an F1 car when he finished second in the Spanish Grand Prix at the track in May.

“I wanted to test the GP3/13 because my friend Afa Heikkinen has a team in this series and I have been closely following their progress and results since the beginning of the season,” said Raikkonen.

“I was curious to see how the car handled and it was actually fun to drive. There were a few issues regarding its behaviour, but we managed to solve most of them.

“The GP3/13 is a very good tool for young drivers, especially when you have to learn about tyre management like we have in F1.”

GP3 technical director Didier Perrin said Raikkonen’s input would help them develop the car: “His experience and feedback were invaluable and they gave us a better understanding of what needs to be done in order to make our car a better tool in overtaking opportunities for next season.”

“He has confirmed all our hypothesis, and together we could start working on two development directions for the end of season testing.”

Pictures: Kimi Raikkonen joins in GP3 test in Barcelona

2013 F1 season


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Image © GP3/LAT

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Keith Collantine
Lifelong motor sport fan Keith set up RaceFans in 2005 - when it was originally called F1 Fanatic. Having previously worked as a motoring...

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40 comments on “Raikkonen tests GP3 car in Barcelona”

  1. Looking at this picture, can he even see the road? He’s sitting so incredibly low in the cockpit!

    1. He knows what he’s doing.

      1. +1 that was funny!!

      2. +1 :))) great one

  2. Wow ki mi talked for a long time or was that several hours worth stitched into one sentence? :-)

    1. Did he say tyre management? So this is how he keep practicing.. would RBR protest? Off course not..entirely legal.

  3. He could of qualified 6th with that time, theoretically speaking…

    1. i thought 3rd? compared to this year’s grid.

    2. @olliekart Yes he would have been behind Kevin Korjus (1’34.193), Tio Ellinas, Patric Niederhauser, Alex Fontana and Carlos Sainz Jnr. And three of those had penalties (Korjus, Fontana and Sainz) had penalties so he’d actually have been third!

      1. not even comparable, Kimi’s testing new aero package for next year GP3 car. Different tire compounds etc

  4. The owner of the team used to help Kimi during his junior career.

    They have keep in touch since.

  5. Cue rumours “Kimi to drive GP3 in 2014”.

    1. The silly season is pretty crazy already, but surely no-one saw this coming! Kimi did mention that his choice may seem crazy to others but perfectly logical to himself :-)

  6. Not far off Karthikeyan’s fastest race lap of 1:32.9 in an HRT (he only managed one lap in the 32s)…

    Have Red Bull complained about this test yet?

  7. I’ve never seen a GP3 car that closely, but it appears to have a sort of side skirt/downward-extending vane on the side of the floor and it appears to be lower than the floor… What’s going on there?

    *I don’t know anything of the aero rules for GP3

    1. If GP3 cars are anything like the GP2 cars, the skirts are likely part of some under-body aerodynamic package. The role of the skirts is seal the airflow under the car, preventing the downforce being disrupted by turbulence.

      It’s much easier to generate downforce, whilst promoting overtaking, with an aerodynamic bottom to the car. This also saves the manufacturer, Dallara, money when initially designing the car. In a spec series, like GP2 or 3, the FIA doesn’t have to mandate a flat bottom, as all of the cars are built the same, meaning that teams aren’t able to design cars that generate dangerous amounts of downforce or spend huge sums of money on tweaks that will be invisible to fans. It also makes for closer racing, as it produces less of a wake, to disrupt airflow over cars following behind.

      1. The current GP2 car doesn’t have skirts, The 1st 2 generations of GP2 car did.

        The unfortunate thing about GP2 (And GP3 this year) is that the cars have become more aero reliant over time. The 1st generation of GP2 car used between 2005-2007 had a great balance between wing generated downforce, Underbody downforce & engine power/driveability & the racing with that car was brilliant everywhere.

        The 2nd-gen car used from 2008-2010 had less underbody & more wing-generated downforce & the racing wasn’t as good, The current car used from 2010 continued that trend.
        The new for this year GP3 car has more power than the old car but also more aero & the racing has been poor this year compared to the past 3 years with the old package.

        The Renault world series car has less power than GP2 but a lot more downforce & are a lot more aero-reliant so the racing in that series tends to not be as good as in GP2.

        1. Isn’t the current GP3 car based on the latest model GP2 car, with the same engine basics (but less powerfull) as well @gt-racer?

          Nice to see you have chosen to get an account so we can use mentions too :-)

          1. I believe the new GP3 car is using a modified version of the GP2 chassis but the aero package is totally different.

            As to engine’s, Both are totally different.
            GP2 run a Mechachrome/Renault 4Ltr V8 producing about 600bhp.
            GP3 run an AER 3.5ltr V6 producing about 400bhp.

          2. Ah, thanks for that. I though the latest GP3 engine was a V8 as well, is Mechachrome still connected to Briatore somehow?

    2. First time Iv seen one up close also . I had no idea the GP2 and GP3 cars used skirts and took advantage of ground effect. Flat undertrays were made mandatory in 1983 to try to eliminate ground effect.

      They were going to reintroduce ground effect aero for F1 in 2014 but its been scrapped now I believe. Maybe the GP2 cars will be setting better lap times than F1 early next year.

  8. I’ll give it 2 days before Red Bull launch a complaint to the FIA ;)

  9. Next rumor will be Kimi moving to GP3…

  10. This just confirms that Kimi is a true racer – he needs pure racing in no matter what category. That’s why he’s my favourite driver.

    1. @osvaldas31

      This just confirms that Kimi is a true racer – he needs pure racing in no matter what category.

      Thats depends…on what you mean by “pure racing”?

    2. Absolutely.

      It also makes me wonder if Kimi might have aspirations to get into team ownership on the future.

      1. Didn’t he have an F3 team about 5 years ago? Mike Conway & Bruno Senna were the drivers I think.

        1. @fisha695 – He did. It was called Raikkonen Robertson Racing, and was owned by Raikkonen and his managers, the Robertsons. They have all since left the team, which is now known as Double R Racing.

        2. Called RRR?

          1. Yep, Räikkönen Robertson Racing. Robertson is his manager. I think Kimi pulled out of it but I don’t remember what happened to the team. Maybe that was the end of it, or did someone else take over?

      2. @bazza-spock – I actually wonder if it’s not the other way around, with Raikkonen trying to get the Koiranren brothers into Formula 1.

        The Lotus experiment has largely failed. The team has had its successes to be sure, but the name is fairly meaningless compared to what was originally intended. The team might have the rights to the name until 2017, but they don’t even refer to themselves as Lotus anymore. They call themselves “Enstone”, which is actually a fairly popular choice fir an alternative name.

        Right now, Lotus are trying to court Infinity Racing, a group of American investors whose participation apparently hinges on Raikkonen’s presence within the team. But with Red Bull taking money from Infiniti and rumour suggesting that Infiniti will rebrand their engines next year inaaddition to their title sponsorship, the last thing anyone – especially Lotus – wants is another naming dispute. And there is no way the FIA will allow Infiniti and Infinity on the grid (Lotus only got away with it in 2011 because their constructor name was technically Renault). So the team could be looking for a new name to put on their cars, with Infinity Racing as an invisible backer. Raikkonen’s connection to Koiranen GP would suit that quite nicely.

  11. I don’t think Red Bull would be so whingey to complain as long as they weren’t running some sort of development Pirelli ;)

  12. “The purpose of the test was to gauge the performance of the car on different tyre compounds and to conduct a development programme requested by GP3 and Pirelli, as well as to find technical solutions to offer more overtaking possibilities to the drivers for the 2014 races.”

    http://www.formula1.com/news/headlines/2013/8/14878.html

    looks like a Pirelli development to me.

    1. @beejis60 I assume it’d be a different tyre for GP3 though?

      1. Ya, but I was just being a smartas$ taking your post as literal ;)

        1. @beejis60 I figured most wouldn’t take it literally (as it was intended) :P

  13. Kimi has good chance to win this year’s championship and even the next year should he choose to move to Red Bull (provided Red Bull keeps up its performance like the last three years). Kimi shouldnt be movin to GP3…thats a bad career move!!

    Here I said it!!;)

  14. Now that is some good publicity for Pirelli.

  15. Kimi has a great job.

Comments are closed.