F1: Raikkonen Parties With His New Team

Formula 1

F1: Raikkonen Parties With His New Team

New LRGP driver has already visited team headquarters...

Adam Cooper | http://www.speedtv.com | Posted December 02, 2011 Balen (BEL)

Eric Boullier (Left), Kimi Raikkonen (Center) and Gerard Lopez (Right) at the Lotus Renault factory in Enstone, England. (Photo: LRGP)

Kimi Raikkonen made his first visit to the Lotus Renault factory in Enstone, England today, three days after he was announced as a driver for 2012.

He managed to time his visit to coincide with the team’s Christmas party, which provided him an ideal opportunity to get to know some of his new colleagues.

“It is my first time in Enstone,” said Kimi on the LRGP team website. “So it is very nice to see the factory – it feels good. It is a very warm feeling and I’m very relaxed. I haven’t really read the newspapers about all the excitement but it is quite normal, isn’t it? It doesn’t put any more pressure on me. I always try to do my best, so I don’t put myself under pressure. It will be exciting, yes, but no pressure really and we will see how it goes.”

“I think we decided that we had to look forward in terms of performance and the key way to see how good a car is, is to have a good driver,” said Genii Group boss Gerard Lopez. “Kimi has proven in the past that he is among the fastest and in terms of age he’s still in his prime. In terms of motivation from what I have seen and spoken to him, he is probably as motivated as ever.

“And the more people question the better it is, because it is going to increase his motivation even more to prove that they are wrong. I’m excited that he is here because I think it’s one of the very important steps in getting the team to where we want it to be – which is one of the top teams in Formula 1.”

Adam Cooper notched up his 26th season as a racing journalist in 2010. He has written about F1 for SPEED.com since 2005. Follow him on Twitter.