Kimi Raikkonen believes that Sauber have all the tools to improve again in 2019, and that they will make strong gains next year.
The Finn is joining the Hinwil outfit on a two-year deal, as his time with Ferrari came to an end after the Abu Dhabi GP.
He joins a Sauber team that finished in P8 in the Constructors’ Championship in 2018, having finished rock bottom the two seasons previous.
The team fields a brand-new driver line-up for next year, with Antonio Giovinazzi joining Kimi Raikkonen, and the latter is looking forward to it.
“I am excited,” Raikkonen said.
“It’s different obviously [to Ferrari] but I think obviously I’ve been in the team, there’s lots of different people now [compared to 2001].
“But I think they have all the tools, they have a great wind tunnel, they have everything to build a great car, have a Ferrari engine so we know what we’re going to get.
“I don’t see reason why we couldn’t do good job out of it. Where that takes us we’ll see next year.”
Raikkonen has already driven the C37, doing so in the post-season Pirelli tyre test in Abu Dhabi.
Speaking about the car, the Flying Finn expressed his surprise at the Sauber, as he thought there would be a bigger gap between the Ferrari and the Sauber.
“For me it was important to try the car and see if there were big things we need to fix, but it was pretty straightforward.” he added.
“To be honest it wasn’t a lot [of] different feelings, I probably expected a bigger difference, but we were just testing tyres, didn’t do set-up work, we did laps to try to see what is what.
“I think as a first experience it was okay.”
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