Interview: Raikkonen Looks Like Senna, Says Rinland

McLaren new boy Kimi Raikkonen has the same will to win as Ayrton Senna and could prove as talented as the late Brazilian, according to the man who designed the Finn's first Formula One car.

Sergio Rinland, now chief designer at Arrows after creating the highly-acclaimed 2001 model Sauber C20, said 22-year-old Raikkonen had been sensational from the day he first tested with Sauber.

"I saw it in his eyes," the Argentine, who arrived in Formula One in 1983 and has worked for various teams before joining Arrows in September, told Reuters in a telephone interview.

"I looked in his eyes and I thought 'I've seen this look before. And I know where I saw that look before'. And it gave me goose bumps when I remembered that look. It was Senna."

The Finn scored a point on his debut with Sauber in Australia this year after just 23 previous races in a single seater car. He has since moved to McLaren - the team that helped Senna to his three world titles - as replacement for Mika Hakkinen, the compatriot and former champion who is taking a year out.

Some people, including former McLaren driver Gerhard Berger, have suggested that the move could prove explosive.

Future Champions

Rinland said he expected the Finns' talent to win through and believed he could be as good as Senna.

"I think in a few years time the people winning championships are going to be Raikkonen, (Colombian Juan Pablo) Montoya, (Spaniard Fernando) Alonso and perhaps Ralf Schumacher," said Rinland. "Jenson Button is as talented but had the bad fortune that in his second season he went into a car that was so difficult to drive that he didn't know if he was coming or going."

Rinland said next year's Arrows, using Jaguar's Cosworth engine for the first time, would be very different from the underpowered 2001 model but it would take a while for his input to be apparent.

"I'm having a very limited influence on next year's car because by the time I got here the car was virtually designed," he said. "There were a few bits on the composite and aero side that were not done when I came but mechanically the car was more or less decided. Hopefully I will have a much larger influence in the 2003 car."

There are no major rule changes from last season to the next one but Rinland said that did not mean the cars and the pecking order would remain unchanged.

"When you have the first year of any new formula, you have a lot of different cars - a few people get it right and many get it wrong. By the second year you get the equaliser, where people start to see what other people have done and study in the wind tunnel and start to follow the same trend.

"So you are going to get some people who are going to put it right where they had it wrong. It will change. The people who had it right like Ferrari, Sauber and probably Williams and McLaren, their step forward is going to be limited because they already had a good car.

"Where you are going to see the big jump is among the people behind, people who are going to progress much more than others."

Rinland believed Arrows would make significant progress next year and looked forward to beating Jaguar and aiming for more than the one point of 2001.

"We should be able to be much, much better off than we were this year," he said.