Giovinazzi plans to follow Raikkonen’s lead at Alfa Romeo

Antonio Giovinazzi wants to capitalise on Kimi Raikkonen’s experience at Alfa Romeo and even plans to model his driving style and approach on his new Formula 1 teammate. 

Giovinazzi graduated to the renamed Alfa Romeo squad to contest his first full-season in F1 alongside Raikkonen, who returns to the team he started his career with after swapping seats with Ferrari’s highly-rated protege Charles Leclerc. 

Last year, Giovinazzi said Raikkonen was the perfect teammate to learn from and the 25-year-old is focused on making the most of the opportunity next to the 2007 world champion and 21-time race winner.

“I think we can do a really good job together,” Giovinazzi said. 

“Kimi has a lot more experience than me so now I just need to listen to him and give my feedback.

“My target is to work with him, just learn from him,” he added.  

“The right thing for the team as well is to go on the same way and maybe [it’s] better for my side to go on Kimi’s way, and also driving on Kimi’s way makes it also easier for the team.

“I think it would be just a mistake to do on a different way of him.”

Giovinazzi said getting ready for his first official running in Alfa Romeo’s new car was like “waking up for Christmas” after a two-year wait to return to the grid after making his grand prix debut in 2017 with the team.

The Italian completed 62 laps in his first outing of pre-season and set the third-best time, just over a second adrift of the fastest lap managed by pacesetter Leclerc. 

“It was a positive day with a lot of laps, more than 100,” Giovinazzi explained. 

“I’m really happy with the first feeling of the car, like Kimi said yesterday, the car looked quite good but of course we need to do a lot of work still.

“We have a few days more so we need to work together and go in the right direction with the car and hope to have a good car in Melbourne.”