It has emerged that Kimi Raikkonen’s race engineer Mark Slade will not follow him from Lotus to Ferrari, according to a report in Italy’s La Gazzetta dello Sport.
The report on Thursday, said that Ferrari has “no intention” of hiring Mark Slade. The report stated, “Ferrari has no intention of hiring Mark Slade to bring him to Maranello as engineer to the “Iceman”. The Finn will be asked to work with another engineer, chosen by team principal Stefano Domenicali, as the Alonso-Stella partnership is unbreakable.”
Raikkonen first worked with Mark Slade at McLaren, and the two reunited when Kimi returned to Formula 1 with Lotus last year.
Raikkonen’s former Ferrari engineer, Andrea Stella, now works with Fernando Alonso and there is no sign that this will change going forward, unless of course the Spaniard throws a cat among the pigeons and leaves Ferrari at the end of the season which despite all the speculation, seems highly unlikely.
Prior to working with Stella at Ferrari, Raikkonen was engineered by Michael Schumacher’s engineer Chris Dyer, with whom he won the 2007 world championship.
Rumour has it that Felipe Massa’s engineer Rob Smedley will be heading for Williams next season so he’s not looking set to be Raikkonen’s race engineer either, but according to the report Ferrari will be promoting from within as it prepares for the arrival of the Iceman. The paper hints that Domenicali is likely to choose either Giuliano Slavi or Antonio Spagnolo, who work currently as chassis engineers for Massa and Alonso respectively.
We will be keeping a close eye on this story and update you as events unfold so as always, watch this space.
Photo credit: Lotuscars.com