When McLaren driver was "dyed blue" in his last race for team

Former McLaren mechanic Marc Priestley has said that he dyed Kimi Raikkonen's hands blue in his final race for the team in 2006.

The Iceman raced for the iconic British team from 2002-2006 and had several memorable moments but failed to win a title. At the end of the 2006 season, he left McLaren for Ferrari to replace the retiring Michael Schumacher.

Priestley, who was Raikkonen's main mechanic at McLaren, said on his YouTube channe about the prank he played on the Finnish driver:

"When it came to that last week when he was leaving for Ferrari, I thought, 'I'm gonna dye him blue'. When I first said it, I didn't really mean it, and I thought I'd whined him up, and I didn't actually think to dye our driver blue. I might get sacked for that sort of thing."

"So, when he arrived at the circuit in Sao Paulo that final week, I said to him, 'You know that when someone leaves McLaren they get dyed blue, don't you?' I said darkly. Kimi looked nervous and tried hard to mask his growing uneasiness. He said,' You won't get me. I get a helicopter straight after the race.' I just smiled at him."

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"The cars are proving to be correlating well with the development" - McLaren team boss

McLaren team principal Andrea Stella has said that they decided to upgrade their car in Baku, as the cars correlated well with development in the factory.

In an interview cited by F1 journalist Chris Medland, the Italian said:

“If there are no anomalous behaviours, then it’s relatively easy because in modern Formula 1, you have the data, and you can read the aerodynamic performance through the forces that you measure and through the pressure map around the car that you measure to the dozens of pressure sensors."

Stella continued:

"So we are not too worried in terms of assessing whether it’s possible or not, unless there are some anomalies. But, so far, I have to say that the cars are proving to be correlating well with the development. That’s why we decided to introduce it, even if it’s a sprint race.

"We know that in Baku, we start another step of this season by starting to have some upgrades on the car. We know it is not going to be a game changer, but it will be a first step for what we hope will be multiple upgrades. We hope we’ll be in contention to fight for points in the future on merit.”

The team will look to get back to scoring points consistently after a slow start.