F1 engineer Slade says Raikkonen was the best driver
Dec.16 - Highly experienced F1 engineer Mark Slade says retired 2007 world champion was in one way "the best driver I've ever worked with".
Slade, with a wealth of experience gathered at McLaren, Renault and Mercedes, moved recently to Haas where he now works with Kevin Magnussen.
But he is most famous for engineering Raikkonen's cars, even though he also worked with world champions Mika Hakkinen, Fernando Alonso and Michael Schumacher.
RAIKKONEN Kimi (fin), Alfa Romeo Racing ORLEN C39, action during the Formula 1 Rolex Belgian Grand Prix 2020, from August 28 to 30, 2020 on the Circuit de Spa-Francorchamps, in Stavelot, near Lige, Belgium - Photo DPPI
"For me, Kimi's the best driver I've ever worked with to set up the car," he told Motorlat.
"He's absolutely phenomenal. His feel for changes was just astonishing.
"You would make a change, and he would tell you that was better here and worse here. He could tell you 'if you can sort this out, I'll go quicker, so you just concentrate on sorting that out'.
"I think a lot of drivers find it more difficult to be that specific," Slade added.
He also said Raikkonen had a sixth sense for when something was wrong with his car.
"Obviously he wouldn't be able to specify what it was, but if you looked and couldn't see anything to start with, you kind of had to look again," said Slade. "The chances were that there was something wrong."
And he said that even after Raikkonen had a break from Formula 1 and returned with Lotus in 2012, the Finn was still "so fast".
"It was a really enjoyable time, and he was just a delight to work with," said Slade. "He was just great - and on it all the time."
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Kimi was great both on the track and off the track!
Unfortunately, none of the current crop have Kimi's ability to race fast, hard, safe and know how to handle the media.
Kimi was unpretentious and told it how it really was! Who could forget the time he missed the presentation with Pelle because "I was having a shit", or the time on the radio to his race manager "Leave me alone, I know what I am doing".
Kimi is a great entertainer, and is a great loss to the F1 paddock! His sense of humour is brilliant. Sadly none of the current drivers have his great ability to entertain as well as drive.
It would appear that the age of real characters in F1 is all but over
Too many gray drivers 🙄 at the moment with no emerging colorful drivers in the wings
RIP real drivers
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