There was much excitement in the F1 world on Monday when Kimi Raikkonen returned to a circuit at the wheel of a grand prix car.<\/p>\n
813 days after he stepped out of his 2009 Ferrari for the last time, the former world champion began a two-day re-acclimatisation test at Valencia’s Ricardo Tormo circuit.<\/p>\n
Returning to the sport with Lotus in 2012, the 32-year-old Finn on Monday did about 300 kilometres at the wheel of the team’s 2010 Renault car equipped with demonstration Pirelli tyres, enjoying a loophole in F1’s now tightly-limited test regulations.<\/p>\n
“There is a lot to get used to,” a media statement quoted him as saying.\u00a0 “I’m happy because I was pretty quick to get back in the groove.”<\/p>\n
And Raikkonen is quoted by Germany’s Auto Motor und Sport: “Of course it will take a little while (longer).”<\/p>\n
Added Lotus’ trackside operations engineer Alan Permane: “Kimi was on the pace we expected straight away.”<\/p>\n
18-time race winner Raikkonen, the 2007 title winner and twice the championship runner-up (2003 and 2005), spent the last two years in the world rally series after Ferrari replaced him with Fernando Alonso.<\/p>\n
“We had several options for this year,” the Finn revealed.<\/p>\n
“I did a bit of Nascar in the past year and since I had a lot of fun racing other people again I decided to go back.<\/p>\n
“And if you want to go racing then formula one is the highest level and so that’s where I wanted to go the most,” added Raikkonen.<\/p>\n
He said he is not worried about coming back to motor sport’s premier category after two whole seasons away.<\/p>\n
“If you compare 2009 with the coming season, probably the biggest difference will be the tyres,” said the Finn, whose last experience in F1 was on Bridgestone’s control tyre.<\/p>\n
“I don’t think there is a big difference with the cars.”<\/p>\n
When asked how he has changed himself since 2009, he replied typically: “I don’t know — I was two years away.”<\/p>\n
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