Alfa Romeo to turn on new F1 simulator

Alfa Romeo will start using its brand new driver simulator in earnest next week.

"We started the project a year ago," team boss Frederic Vasseur revealed to Blick newspaper.

"It is part of the development of the team. Next week it opens but things will really get going in the first quarter of 2020," he added.

Vasseur admits, however, that Kimi Raikkonen is not excited about the new sim.

"Certainly not," he laughed. "He is not exactly known for his work in a simulator, but that’s like Lewis Hamilton, by the way.

"But for young people it is a tool of the future and for us an important investment."

It is not known how much Alfa Romeo’s new simulator cost, but Vasseur said: "It was certainly not cheap.

"But in the end it pays off for the drivers and engineers."

Alfa Romeo had a mixed 2019 season, finishing third-last of the constructors’, and at the same time the team lost its technical boss Simone Resta.

"Ferrari wanted him back," Vasseur confirms.

"But he was primarily concerned with the 2020 car, so we could handle it at the time."