Jerez Day 4: Raikkonen ends test on top for Ferrari

Kimi Raikkonen

Ferrari's Kimi Raikkonen ended the first Formula 1 test of 2015 on top for Ferrari, setting the fastest time of the week at Jerez on Wednesday afternoon. In fact Ferrari led the times all four days, except one when Felipe Nasr snuck in a fast time on soft tires while Ferrari were on mediums.

The 2007 world champion spent most of the day at the top of the times, running on the medium and hard-compound tires during the morning, before switching to some soft-tire running late in the afternoon.

Raikkonen thinks Ferrari is in much better shape this year.

"Compared with the last car it feels at lot better," he said.

"We still have a lot of things to work on and things to improve, but we have something we can work on and the team has done a good job over the winter to prepare and make this car.

"We can be happy about that, but it's still early days."

Quotes

Felipe Massa: The FW37 once again proved how reliable it was with an error free day. The car has been consistent over the last four days and we have made good progress. We have highlighted certain areas that need work and so will make sure the car is improving every time we take to the track. We have our feet on the ground and are focused on making this car quicker when testing continues in Barcelona.

Lewis Hamilton: It's been pretty amazing this week to see how reliable the car has been and how much mileage we've covered. The team here at the track and back at the factories is so enthusiastic and energized which is great to see. We all loved the experience of last year and everyone wants to do it again. This is where you prove out the car – looking for as many laps as you can, not searching for fast times. It's been really positive from that perspective and every day here the car has got better as we learn more about it. Everyone will keep bringing upgrades through pre-season, so the cars will develop and they will improve and that then carries on through the first race. I can't really say much about the performance of the car yet but it doesn't feel any worse than last year's, which is a good sign. I'm fit and ready to go – 117 laps today felt fairly easy – so I'm already looking forward to getting back to it in Barcelona.

Max Verstappen: My second day in the car went well. We completed a large number of laps and, in terms of speed, I can't complain. The most important thing about these four days is that the car was generally reliable, so I could get plenty of track time, which was important also from the physical point of view for me. Clearly my winter training paid off.

Romain Grosjean: My first impressions of the E23 Hybrid are good. Both the Power Unit and the chassis are going in the right direction. I completed over fifty laps today and I can honestly say that all of them were enjoyable to drive. The team has made very good progress if you consider where we were this time last year. It's a very good start and I'm a happy driver.

Daniil Kvyat: We had an issue this morning but we managed to overcome that and we had a clean run in the afternoon, so I'm really happy to have got a lot of laps under my belt today," said Daniil. "All in all, I think it was a very productive day, with a lot of positives. I think we know where we are and where we want to be for the next test in Barcelona. We've made good progress this week and hopefully there's more to come.

Marcus Ericsson: It was another good day for us with more than 100 laps completed. It's been a great first week of testing for the whole team, and I would like to thank everybody for the work done. We collected a lot of good information. It was interesting for me because I drove the car on days one and four, and it was obvious that we were able to make some progress in between. Felipe and the team did a good job, so when I jumped in the car again I was able to immediately notice the progress, which is encouraging. I think we have a good basis which we can now build on.

Wednesday Results