Ferrari names race engineer for Raikkonen

0 Comment(s)Print E-mail Shanghai Daily, December 19, 2013
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Kimi Raikkonen will be hearing a new voice over the team radio next season after Ferrari said on Tuesday that Italian Antonio Spagnolo would be race engineer to the returning 2007 world champion.

How much assistance he will need remains to be seen.

The taciturn Finn is well known for doing things his own way, famously telling his race engineer at Lotus in 2012 to "leave me alone, I know what I'm doing" while on his way to victory in Abu Dhabi.

The quote is now a Formula One legend, emblazoned on thousands of T-shirts.

Raikkonen won his title with Ferrari, before making way for Fernando Alonso at the end of the 2009 season and moving to rallying for two years prior to a comeback with Lotus.

The Finn's race engineer from his last Ferrari period, Italian Andrea Stella, is still with the Italian team. However, Stella has since forged a very close working relationship with Alonso.

Ferrari's announcement means change for Britain's Rob Smedley, a familiar voice to television viewers worldwide as race engineer to Raikkonen's long-suffering Ferrari predecessor Felipe Massa.

Massa has moved to Williams and Smedley could join him there in a new technical role, although he has also been linked with a position at McLaren.

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