Fernando Alonso is suffering from the same problems to the same degree as Kimi Raikkonen, he’s just a faster driver at the moment.
That’s the claim of Ferrari’s technical director James Allison who rebuffed reports that it’s only Raikkonen who isn’t comfortable in the F14-T and is therefore suffering as a result compared to his team-mate.
Allison says both Raikkonen and Alonso are suffering from the same issues, but Alonso is managing to drive around them.
“I’m not sure it’s entirely fair to say he [Raikkonen] is struggling more than Fernando,” said the Briton ahead of the Canadian Grand Prix.
“They both have [given] similar feedback with the car,” he explained. “They are quite a handful to drive, not too breezy for anyone, be that at the front or back of the grid. T
“he problems Kimi has with the car under braking and downshifting, are the same as Fernando, and pretty much the same as being experienced by other drivers at other teams.
“He’s just going a little slower than Fernando at the moment, but that gap is closing as the year progresses.”
Whilst that gap may be closing, the gap to leaders Mercedes certainly isn’t, and Allison admits they’ve a long way to go until it does.
“It’s tough,” he said. “Making a car quick that wasn’t quick in the first race is a particularly challenging task.
“It’s very difficult to produce a rate of improvement substantially different to the people we are fighting with.
“We hope in the coming races to have a more steady progression of things we hope will lift us up in our competitiveness. But we won’t know for sure until we get there because it depends on what everyone else does.”
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