Alfa Romeo Finnish driver Kimi Raikkonen has come out and defended his new team-mate Antonio Giovinazzi, saying he is being judged too early.
While the Finn has enjoyed an excellent start to life at Alfa Romeo, picking up 12 points, Giovinazzi has yet to score and has endured criticism as a result.
Kimi Raikkonen though believes this criticism is unfair.
Speaking to Motorsport.com, he said: “I think it’s obviously not been all up to him, he’s unfortunately had a lot of issues on the car.
“And obviously [he has] quite little experience, any mileage you can put it’s obviously going to help him a huge amount more than on my side, so it’s been very unfortunate, but that’s racing, and obviously we always try to fix things.
“He’s had more issues on the practice with the reliability, small issues that are not a big issue but stop the car and then we don’t get running, so it doesn’t help him.
The Italian has admittedly had poor reliability and will serve a ten-place grid penalty in Baku after the team replaced the control electronics on his car.
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Kimi believes that Giovinazzi should not be judged until he can drive a weekend without such issues.
“Hopefully he gets a clean weekend and then we can judge him much easier, I think it’s very unfair right now to write him off.
“I think he can do fast laps but obviously he has not that much experience, and when you miss one full session in any weekend it’s going to be a nightmare to try to build back on it.”
Antonio Giovinazzi will be needing improved reliability and strong performances to match going forward if he is to challenge his team-mate and secure a drive for next season.
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