Kimi Raikkonen was left unfazed by a fire which engulfed his Alfa Romeo in the latter stages of Practice 2 at the Formula 1 Abu Dhabi Grand Prix.
The Finn stopped his car midway around the lap when fire could be seen licking the underside of the rear bodywork.
By the time the 41-year-old had clambered out, it had largely engulfed the rear of the car.
“There was nothing scary about it,” Raikkonen reasoned.
“It’s just a shame that it gets some fire and gets all messed up, trying to put the fire down. It’s one of those things.”
Once clear of the car, Raikkonen worked with fire marshals to extinguish the flames before being able to take stock of the aftermath.
“For sure there is some damage, hopefully it is mainly bodywork, but we’ll see,” he said.
“Obviously it’s a different engine and gearbox than we run tomorrow, but yeah, it’s just a bit more work for the guys, obviously.”
Raikkonen ended Practice 2 with the 14th fastest time, the best part of 1.8s down on countryman Valtteri Bottas who topped the session.
That included a stint on development tyres early in the second 90-minute outing as Pirelli again looks towards 2021.
It left the 2007 world champion satisfied with where things are at, though will tune the car further ahead of qualifying.
“Things seem to work pretty okay, and obviously the end wasn’t great, but we couldn’t do many laps on the more high fuel runs, but that’s how it ends up,” he said.
“I think they (the tyres) were pretty OK. There’s always things to improve, but nothing odd.”
Practice for the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix continues at 21:00 AEDT on Saturday evening, with qualifying to follow at midnight.
Discussion about this post