Veteran F1 engineer Mark Slade says retired 2007 F1 world champion Kimi Raikkonen was in some ways “the best driver I’ve ever worked with”.
Mark Slade, who has extensive experience at McLaren, Renault and Mercedes, recently moved to the Haas F1 team, where he currently works alongside Kevin Magnussen.
Mark Slade, who has also worked with F1 world champions Mika Hakkinen, Fernando Alonso and Michael Schumacher, is most famous for engineering Kimi Raikkonen’s cars.
“For me, Kimi is the best driver I’ve worked with to set up the car,” Mark Slade told Motorlat.
“He’s just amazing. His sense of change has been amazing.”
“If you make a change, he says this part is good and this part is bad. He might say, ‘If you can fix this, you can go faster, so focus on fixing it.'”
“I think a lot of drivers find it difficult to be so clear.”
Mark Slade also said Kimi Raikkonen had something of a sixth sense when something went wrong with his car.
“Of course, he mightn’t pinpoint what it was, but even if he didn’t see anything at first, he had to look once more. There was more than likely something wrong.”
After Kimi Raikkonen left F1 and returned to Lotus in 2012, he was still “very quick”, says Mark Slade.
“It was a really fun time. It was a pleasure working with him,” said Mark Slade.
“He was just great. Always great.”
Category: F1 / Kimi Raikkonen
