SPANISH GP 12′ – MALDONADO WINS WHILE KIMI TAKES 3RD

Posted on May 14, 2012 by


F1 returns to Europe after a 3 week break. Lots of updates for the teams could possibly shake up the order. But I dont think anyone saw this result coming..

QUALIFYING

The qualifying session was a strange one to say the least. The big name knocked out of Q1 was Bruno Senna. He hit traffic and when pushing spun out on his final try. Not the best birthday gift for Frank Williams who just turned 70 in April. What was strange is that top teams had to put on softs in Q1 just to be sure to make it through.

Q2 was a real dogfight. The track was improving all the time and to get a clean lap was also a challenge. Surprise knockouts was Button and Webber. Play time is over for real. The shocker was Maldonado setting the quickest time by far. Where did that come from??

The final shootout went so-so for our protagonist. He was up 3 tenths on Alonso who had provisional pole on the final run. But (another) mistake in the final sector lost Kimi about 2 tenths. His teammate narrowly pipped him due to this.

The shocker came when Pastor Maldonado in the Williams beat Alonsos time and got the provisional pole! Until Hamilton blasted into pole position half a second quicker. However, Lewis came to a halt on the track on his inlap. I caught myself thinking that they did another “Canada 2010″ where the same happened. He got pole but could not make it back to the pitlane.

And sure enough, investigation showed that low fuel was indeed the reason. Hamilton was stripped of his pole position and sent to the back of the grid. Pretty harsh. My take on this? The reason FIA smacked McLaren so hard is because it happened before. So they felt they had to set an example probably. I think eradicating his Q3 time and being sent to P10 would have sent a clear enough message. But thats me. Now he even had to start behind
a car that failed to meet the 107% Q1 time. Something seems unfair with that.
But it is what it is and Maldonado is awarded a sensational pole position. Everyone moves up a place and Kimi starts 4th. If not for the mistake he would have been very very close to taking pole position.

THE RACE

The lights go out on the Catalunya track and in no suprising move, Fernando Alonso takes the start and the lead into turn 1. Accompanied by a mighty roar from the Spanish crowd. Raikkonen keeps his cool, does a good start and passes Grosjean with ease to take 3rd. The Lotus cars were tipped to have race winning pace but it quickly emerges that is not the case. At least not on the softs as Alonso and Maldonado pulls away at the front. Or perhaps Kimi is just taking care of the tires?

Kimi still puts a solid gap between him and Romain who is even battling the Mercedes cars for that 4th position. But the two front runners seem untouchable at this stage. Kimis first stop goes by without any hinges. In fact it is one of the few stops that dip below the 20 second mark, so Lotus have really been practising here. His next stop was 1.5 seconds slower however, so there is room for improvement.

Meanwhile Maldonado is keeping in close touch with Alonso. No change after the first stop but he pits 2 laps earlier than the Ferrari for his second stop. And a great couple of laps got the jump on the Spaniard. So now we have a Williams leading the race in proper fashion! Amazing.

What is not as amazing is an incident between the other Williams car of Senna and Schumachers Mercedes. From the replays it seems Schumacher just careened into the back of Bruno Senna. Granted Senna moved a bit but there was plenty of space on the inside. The Williams driver was also on pretty worn tyres so naturally he would brake earlier. Here is the crash: http://youtu.be/5c-pu4Kt_T4
The golden rule of racing is that the guy behind is the one who can see and always have the major responsibility. Schumacher is eventually handed a 5-place grid penalty for Monaco after the race.

What I find absolutely uncanny is that it is an almost repeat of an incident that happened 20 years ago. The involved? Schumacher and Senna: http://youtu.be/cMPuTqVzDn8
Here you can see Ayrton giving Michael a piece of his mind about the incident at 0:18 – http://youtu.be/zfmJ8mivNxw
It would have been freaking awesome if Bruno Senna had went up to Schumacher and did the same now. Anyway, that concludes todays history lesson from F1bias.com ;)

Back to the race, we have Maldonado building a small gap of 5-6 seconds before he pits for his final set of tires on lap 41. Ferrari leaves Alonso out for 3 laps longer to have a fresher set towards the end. He is not losing too much time to the Venezualan, even on the worn tires so this looks to be a fight to the end.

Meanwhile Kimi is having a quiet race. His teammate is 16-17 seconds behind him and the top 2 are about 20 seconds ahead. Lotus lets him stay out all the way to lap 48. He is passed by Maldonado and Alonso even after they have stopped. What plans does Lotus have here? We get a team radio for Kimi stating that they believe the leaders will have to pit again. Kimi just drove 21 laps on his previous set, so why they would think that Ferrari and Williams would stop a few laps before the end is beyond me?

Alonso is chasing down the Williams and gets within DRS range. But Maldonado plays it smart. He is told by the team to really go easy on the tires in the most demanding corners like turn 3 and turn 9 where passing is near impossible anyway. And my guess is he saved a healthy dose of KERS for the DRS zone keeping Alonso just out of range for a proper attack. Seasoned driving.

The chasing and fighting eventually takes a toll on Alonsos younger tires as well and as soon as he dropped out of DRS range, I knew Pastor had it in the bag. Kimi is lapping a lot faster than the top 2 at this point. But they are about 14 seconds ahead with 7 laps to go – surely that is a tall order. But Kimi claws in the gap, lap by lap. Amazingly he is only 0.7 seconds behind Alonso at the finish line and 3.8 seconds behind race winner Maldonado. So close and yet so far..

Before I get to Maldonados sensational win, I would just like to comment on Kimis final pit stop. Lotus was criticised for keeping him out too long. But taking him in earlier would only have meant more worn tires at the end. But if he instead could have defended from Alonso and held him behind for one more lap before his final pit stop, then he might have had a decent shot at 2nd place. Or if they had put on the hards on the first stop. But that is hindsight and Kimi would not be pleased with 2nd anyway so..

Edit on May the 15th:
I have now had more time to reflect and look at the laptimes and Kimis strategy. And some helpful insights from other fans have shifted my opinion a bit. Turns out Kimi lost about 8 seconds on the extra 3 laps he did compared to Alonsos second to last stint. Had he been pulled in two laps earlier, he would undoubtedly have caught Alonso with a a lap or 2 to spare. Again, hindsight. But what worries me the most is that the Lotus team so far seem to have been unable to make quick and clever changes to strategy when the situation calls for it. I also feel that they should changed strategy and put on the harder tire on his second stint when they saw that he was losing a lot of ground to the 2 guys in front. The medium tyre was the better one. And they could have used the softer on the next stint when the track had rubbered in more and the track temp was up. (As it usually does in a race)

As it stands its another great result and Lotus has cemented their 3 place in the standings, just 14 points behind McLaren. Whats more is that Kimi have moved up to 4th in the standings, only trailing Vettel and Alonso by 12 points! Its a long season folks and Monaco is coming up. Kimi always have something special up his sleeve around Monaco. A track where talent matters more than any other venue. Bring it on!

As for Pastor Maldonado and Williams: What an incredible improvement from last year. In 2011 they had 3 finishes in the points. Three! One 10th place and two 9th place finishes. That is 5 points in the entire season. And now they have a win and 43 points overall. That is comparable to Caterham going from backmarker to suddenly fighting for podiums from one season to the next. Well, I for one hope that Williams will be fighting with the top
teams from now on. Even if it means one more competitor for Kimi to deal with before he gets his hands on his next win. This however, ends an 8 year win drought for the Williams team. Congratulations!

FIRE IN THE WILLIAMS GARAGE

As I am writing this review, it has been brought to my attention that there has been an explosion in the Williams garage. And several team members are being treated in the medical centre. What a sad conclusion to this fairy tale story for Williams. I really hope no one is seriously hurt. It was pretty bad as you can tell from the pictures and video on this link: http://thef1times.com/news/display/05984
More news here: http://www.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/99599

SORENS RACE RATING

It was a good race, but the subdued middle stint from Kimi brings it down a bit. Perhaps a 6 out of 10 raised to a 7 out of 10 due to a surprise winner. So far the streak is going. 5 races, 5 different winners from 5 different teams. Now we need Kimi to prevail in Monaco to make it a record 6.

Here are Kimis own thoughts on the race: http://en.espnf1.com/spain/motorsport/story/78595.html
And here is what he had to say in the press con in his own language. Is it any wonder that the guy is a legend? LOL: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aiXDQHQxY3s

POST SCRIPT

Yours truly is actually and in fact getting married in less than 2 weeks. May the 26th is the date and the ceremony takes place during Monaco qualifying. Yes, I am skipping watching that. If that is not true love, what is?
What I am trying to say, is that I will not be able to write a review of the Monaco GP this year since my services are required elsewhere at that time ;)
Wish us luck!

One more thing. As you probably know, I write these reviews in my spare time and I get a lot of positive feedback which I duly appreciate.
However, I would really like to do an on-track review this year and I would also like to bring my lovely new bride along as well. Especially since she has never been to an F1 race before. So that is why I am boldly and bashfully asking for a small donation to be able to do so. Also – I have previously had a few requests from regular readers asking about a donation option. So thats nice.

Any small amount is greatly appreciated and will be earmarked for a GP in the European venue. Should the funds not be sufficient, they will be used for another race at a later date. Our dream is to go to Spa this year for obvious reasons. Call it a wedding gift to my wife and me. Only if you can and will of course (-:

Link for donation: https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=_s-xclick&hosted_button_id=6RASBNUPLDU3W 

Okay, enough begging. Take care y’all!
Love, Soren

Images © Williams, Glenn Dunbar, Steven Tee, Pirelli/LAT Photographic, Charles Coates, Lorenzo Bellanca, Ferrari spa/Ercole Colombo

Do not hesitate to contact me if you need any of these photos taken down for any reason.

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BAHRAIN GP ’12 – THE WIN THAT GOT AWAY

Posted on April 23, 2012 by


A magnificent podium for Kimi Raikkonen in his 4th race after his comeback! Nothing short of sensational. Congratulations to him and the Lotus team that also saw teammate Grosjean on the podium. Well done.

You may however have spotted a bit of disappointment in the headline. Am I not thrilled? Of course I am. It was the result that Kimi and the team needed and it was a long time coming from having dominated the pre-season testing. But various mistakes meant that the long awaited podium had evaded them. Finally it was here and yet I cant help think that a win could have been achieved with some minor adjustments to their strategy and driver focus. Do read on.

QUALIFYING

Ah – qualifying.. A glorious hour on Saturday where we see the true pace of these mighty machines. Not masked by tire preservation, fuel saving or various strategies. (Well.. not entirely. But mostly.) I love every minute. As for the hero of this blog, we were just hoping that he would have a “normal” qualifying. Get safely through to Q3 and aquire a decent grid position.

The Bahrain track was very dusty this Saturday and grip levels were improving for practically every lap. Michael Schumacher suffered from this fact in Q1. Partly because of a fantastic lap by Kovalainen that saw him find 1.4 seconds between the beginning and the end of the session and partly due to a non-working DRS wing for the German. Lesson to be learned? Track gets faster by the minute.

Lotus and Kimi have preferred going out early in the quali sessions and this was no exception. Kimi gets a decent laptime on the board. But would it be fast enough? As the clock winds down and the laptimes improve, it is clear to everyone and his dog that his time will not send him to Q3. He would need another run. To my amazement, it didnt happen.

Granted, he saved a set of softs for the race. Thats all fine and dandy. But since it seems that the tactic was to do only one run, I cannot quite understand why they didnt send him out at the end of Q2. When the grip was at its best. Everyone who went out a second time improved their laptime by quite a margin. Which was what sent Kimi down to 11th.

Anyway – the damage was done and a lot of Kimi fans were quite furious over the decision.
Myself included. I was sure that the good result that Kimi and the Lotus was capable of, would be postponed for yet another race. Kimi however said that: “There are no points given out on Saturday”, and concluded with his trademark: “Let’s see what happens tomorrow.” Indeed.

THE RACE

Lights go out and Kimi gets one heck of a start! I cant remember anything like that since Spa 2009. From 11th to 7th in 2 corners. His teammate, Grosjean, does no worse and is up to 4th from 7th. Some of the damage from qualifying has already been neutralized. Vettel does a deja vu and takes the lead from his pole position. Perhaps we got a race on our hands after all. And did we ever..

Kimi goes wheel to wheel with Rosberg defending his position – and wins. Something that might explain Rosberg getting all mental while defending later, determined not to lose out again. But Kimi is chasing down Button much like he did in China. Bahrain is notorious for being hard to pass on, so my hopes were not exactly high for any advancement at this point. And sure enough, Kimi makes a small mistake out of the final corner which gives Massa the opportunity to use the top speed of the Ferrari to pass him on the straight. Bummer..

But whats this? Did my eyes just explode from the eyecandy on the screen?? Because I think I just witnessed Kimi repassing Massa through turn 5 and 6! Epic move. But he is not done – a couple of laps later he disposes of Button down to turn 4 and starts hunting down the Spaniard in the beautiful looking Ferrari.. Kimi fancies his chances and passes Alonso on the straight. Wham-bam, thank you Ma’am! :D

Up into 5th place, Kimi has his sights locked on the Red Bull of Webber in front. The frontrunners pit and after all is said and done and corrected for stops, we have Vettel still comfortably in the lead. Grosjean is up to 2nd. Webber is 3rd with our protagonist not far behind. *Cue dramatic music score* A horrible pit stop for Hamilton helped Kimi up the order.

Lap 13 and Kimi is all over the Australian. This time Kimi uses his sublime throttle control and car feel to get the perfect exit out of the tricky turn 10 to pass the Red Bull on the back straight. He flies by like nobodys business. Webber doesnt even have time to plan one of his lovely chops and is a helpless victim of the Icy train of fury. I do not recall seeing any other passing moves on top drivers down the back straight than this one. Correct me if Im wrong.

Kimi does another pass in the turn 5-6 combo that we didnt see on the live feed. This time on Kobayashi who has not pitted yet. Next target is the Croissant in the other Lotus. Mmm… Some lovely vichyssoise with a croissant on the side… Tasty. But I digress.

Once Di Resta pitted on lap 14, the hunt was on for 2nd place held by his teammate. Kimi starts it off by setting the fastest lap. 6 tenths faster than the race leader and 1.3 seconds faster than the other Lotus (who was held up a bit by Di Resta). Next lap Kimi gains 4 tenths and keeps clawing in the gap until he is on his heels on lap 21. Up til then he has been 4-5 tenths faster than the race leader. But once he caught Grosjean his lap times naturally dropped to the same as the Frenchman. And it stayed that way for 3 laps.

BREAKDOWN

Before then Kimi was doing mid 1.39 laps. Now he is doing mid 1.40 laps behind his teammate. Apparently Kimi has had enough and goes on the team radio on lap 23 and says “If you want to try to win, I have to get past”. On lap 24 he passes Grosjean and takes up the hunt for the win. By now, Vettel is 6.5 seconds up the road. Something that would have been half that if they had just let him by on lap 21. It is this kind of stupidity from the Lotus team that cost Kimi a couple more tries on passing Vettel and likely the win. How the man doesnt complain of such an obvious blunder to the press is beyond me. Alonso does it. It is in times like these I wish Kimi would be more assertive and demanding.

Well, maybe he was behind the scenes. But we also know that Boullier is the manager of Grosjean, so there is undoubtedly a conflict of interest there. I know I should be happy to see the Kimster running strong in second place. But I just know that the win would have been there if they had let him by right away. Instead he spent the best of his soft tires behind his teammate, when they should have been used to chase Vettel down! Silly silly Lotus. I hope a lesson has been learnt. One does not simply underestimate the Iceman.

In fact – watch this video of Ted Kravitz going over Kimis laptimes compared to Vettels. He is of the same opinion as me. From the 3:20 mark: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-aksC5S1N-U

Gary Anderson also has another opinion in how the race could have been won: http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/formula1/17816565

RACE CONCLUSION

But I am getting ahead of myself. Kimi on mediums is chasing down the double worldchampion who is on the softs. Lap 36 he gets close enough for his “one chance” as he put it, to pass the Red Bull. But Vettel defends well and Kimis tires have pretty much peaked at this stage and he cannot get close again. So when they pit on the same lap for the same tires, it was just a matter of controlling the race and the pace for Vettel while being informed of Kimis sector times.

So its status quo until the chequered flag. Vettel and Red Bull is back in the game with a win. A party that could have been spoiled by the Iceman, had only the team played their ace better. Still, I am happy to have enjoyed a great and exciting race with some eyepopping moves from Kimi. Best Bahrain race that I have ever seen, thats for sure. One is naturally a tad downbeat when you know a win was possible. And Kimi was too: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1jCn7FINQ6M

But for now – enjoy his passes here. As long as the video is up, that is: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PcmNN9Cp-Ws

The good thing is that there is more to come. I am sure that Kimi will have another shot at a win this year. Go Kimi Go!!

SORENS RACE RATING

Its an 8 out of 10 for me. A win would obviously have been a top score. But an exiting and enjoyable race. Lots of action and not just of what I have recounted here. The battle between the McLarens, Ferraris and Mercedes was hardly boring. Hamilton overtaking Rosberg outside the track and Alonso being heavily blocked by the same Rosberg was quite a sight. But the chief provider of the eyecandy thrillride comes courtesy of K. Raikkonen.

And on behalf of F1 fans all over the world – we sincerely thank you for returning to Formula 1 where you belong.

Remember to rate the race and feel free to comment.

You can also join us in the chilliest group on Facebook:
http://www.facebook.com/groups/kimifanclub/

Peace!
Soren

Images © Lotus F1 Team, Andrew Ferraro, Charles Coates, Pirelli/LAT Photographic, Clive Mason, Red Bull/Getty Images

Do not hesitate to contact me if you need any of these photos taken down for any reason.

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CHINESE GP ’12 – THE PODIUM THAT GOT AWAY

Posted on April 16, 2012 by


3 weeks break and its finally time for some clear cut racing. As you probably know, we primarily focus on Kimis campaign in F1 here. The Chinese GP have brought him some good results before and the car has had the promise of being capable of positions close to the top. So expectations were high all around. Sadly, the higher they are the harder they seem to fall.

QUALIFYING

Unfortunately the updates brought for this race was found to not be working as expected on the E20, so they were taken off again. Still we saw a solid qualifying result for Kimi. 5th place which was bumped up to 4th due to a gearbox penalty for Hamilton. Grosjean qualified 10th and opted to not set a time in Q3 to save tires for the race.

The field were amazingly close together in the final 2 sessions. The two huge surprises was Nico Rosberg on pole position and possibly even more surprising were Kobayashis Sauber in 4th, bumped up to 3rd. Nicely done!

THE RACE

Lights out and a good start for Kimi gets him past Kobayashi. Button has an even better start and goes on the outside of Kimi in turn 1 to pass him. A nice move that unfortunately was the first nail in the coffin for Kimis race.

He settles in behind Button with no trouble in keeping up with the McLaren while the Mercs are slowly pulling away in front. Or at least Rosberg is. At this point he looks to be slightly faster on the softs than both the McLarens and the Red Bulls around him.
The DRS doesnt help in passing at all. In fact there was nowhere near the same number of passing moves as in 2011. They shortened the DRS zone to limit this, but I believe they overdid the shortening.

At this stage the race still looked promising. Then came the pitstops.. Hamilton goes into the pits right behind Raikkonen on lap 10. The moment I saw that I suspected that Lotus would lose this pitstop battle compared to their previous performance in the pits. And sure enough, Hamilton came out in front. Another place was lost to Webber who had already pitted on lap 6 and had made some great progress through traffic. He even did a wheelie to celebrate this: http://i.imgur.com/sl2GQ.gif

All is far from over at this point for Kimi. Still keeping up with Webber. He is unable to put any pressure on him though and is instead being pressured from Alonso behind him. Schumacher is out of the race due to a mistake in the pits with a wheelnut and everybody gains a position except race leader Rosberg.

Webber pits on lap 21 and this is where things start to get hazy. Kimi now has a clear track ahead of him and he has the chance to narrow the gap to Rosberg ahead. Instead he is barely able to break the DRS gap of 1 second to Alonso behind. The mediums is turning out to be the tire of choice for the Chinese GP. Sadly they do not seem to be working as good on his Lotus as the softs did comparatively. His pace has so far generally been better than his teammate Grosjean but the Frenchman is starting to catch up as Kimi pits on lap 28. Half race distance.

TIME OUT

Here is where I need to break it down. Im sure 98% of the people reading this review already know that Kimi would stay out the remaining 28 laps on the same tires. The thing that makes me scratch my head is that the Lotus team claims that a 2 stop strategy was planned all along.

First pit stop was done after 10 laps. A bit early in my opinion for a 2 stop, but other 2-stoppers did similar things so fair enough. The optimal would probably be to look at what race winner Rosberg did. Which was pit on lap 13 and 34. That meant two stints on mediums at 21 and 22 laps. Very do-able. Especially with two new sets of mediums like he had.

However what Lotus did was put new mediums on the 18 lap stint and the used mediums on the 28 lap stint. Link: http://bit.ly/IXusEo

Umm, okay? Im sorry but that doesnt look planned to me at all. Surely, if it was planned, it would have been the other way around. I think it was a case of, “Oh feck, we are going backwards due to slow and badly timed pitstops. Lets see if we can salvage a podium by letting Kimi stay out.” Having said that, Kimi went for the gamble as well. Nothing in his interviews indicate otherwise. Here is one: http://bit.ly/IN2ZpE
Sky interview after the race: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ax9VKCCqKJo

From then on he was just trying to make the tires last and defend well enough to finish 2nd. As you know, that failed horribly.

Another point I would like to put in numbers is the time Lotus is losing during stops. Lets compare the combined time of Alonsos first 2 stops with Kimis.
Alonso: 40.4 seconds.
Kimi: 42.9 seconds.

Thats a full 2.5 seconds. Massas two stops was even a tenth faster. Ferrari were the fastest crew, but all of the top teams had better times than Lotus not counting mistakes. I have touched on it before and Lotus have said that they are adressing it. Again, that gap is how you lose a position or two in a race. It has to be rectified as soon as possible.

So, could a podium have been possible? Yes, but it would have required a perfect strategy as Kimis pace on the mediums was not as good as one could have hoped for. 12 laps on the softs, 24 laps on the new mediums and 20 laps on the used set might have paid off with a 2nd or 3rd place. Mind you, the drop-off came on lap 20 on the used mediums so it would be touch and go.

Could they have gone 10 laps, 18 laps, 18 laps and then a 10 lap stint on softs? Sure. But it would not have been a podium. The field was bunched so close together that a pit stop would have dropped him to 14th most likely. To do any better than 9th or 10th from there is a stretch.

Ah well. Hindsight is a beautiful thing. The Lotus team have received a lot of flak from Kimi fans after the race. Deserved? Well, the biggest cock-up was definitely to use his new mediums on the shorter stint. If the new set of primes had been put on for the final 28 laps, would that have made a difference? Maybe. But I dont think so. The used mediums were gone after 20 laps for Kimi and I dont think they had as much as 8 laps on them from Q1 where they most likely were used. As mentioned above, for that supposedly planned 2 stopper to work, it would have had to be spread out far better than it was.

ENTROPY

In the end, all Kimi could do was play the hand he was dealt. Also being stuck behind Massa for quite some time only worsened the issue and the tire wear. My guess is that being held up by Massa was the deciding factor to try and let him stay out til the end.

He made a heroic effort but it didnt work out. He is not the first driver, nor is Lotus the first team to play out a strategy that fails. Vettel saw Kimi starting to struggle for grip on lap 48 and pressured him for second place. While defending, Kimi got on the marbles and lost 2 positions straight away. Down the straight a couple more. And it was a tumble down to 14th from there as his laptimes fell off a cliff. Sad to watch but like I said, it happens.

Kudos to Grosjean for making his set of used mediums last 24 laps to the end. Not to be overly apologetic of Kimi, but most people will agree that there is a world of difference in fighting to keep 2nd place while Red Bulls and McLarens are hunting you down, than coming up behind from 11th-12th position.

I will also put out a little reminder that this is only Kimis 3rd race after a 2 year break. Before the season started, I expected Kimi to use half a season to get up to speed. The way he has made his comeback have exceeded my hopes. And it is only natural that he still might need a little more getting used to the Pirellis. Having said that, we also saw that Vettels 2-stop gamble didnt entirely pay off either as he went from 2nd to 5th.

Big congrats to Rosberg for finally making it onto the top step of the podium. I have been expecting and waiting for that since I saw his debut in 2006 in Bahrain. Well done. They say it becomes easier from now on. Perhaps another contender in the championship battle?

Luckily we will not have to wait long before the next race. At least it looks like Bahrain will go ahead. It has not been a track that has been overly kind to Kimi through the years. But he did go from 22nd to 3rd in 2006 in a McLaren that never won a race that year. Fingers crossed ;)

SORENS RACE RATING

Its a tough one. It was an exciting race but a real downer to see Kimi plummet down the order at the end. So I will disregard that and look at the race as a whole. Nico was never really threatened. And the battle for the win that could and would have been, went out the window with the botched pitstop for Jenson Button. A close field and a lot of shuffling behind the leader was exciting and lands it on a 6.5 out of 10 for me.

Go ahead and have your say in the poll:


Peace!
Soren

Images © Lotus F1 Team, Charles Coates/LAT Photographic, Daimler/Hoch Zwei, Pirelli/LAT
Do not hesitate to contact me if you need any of these photos taken down for any reason.

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THE DESIRED RAIKKONEN COMEBACK

Posted on April 10, 2012 by


So once again I find the need to post an article not written by myself. But this article was found in a Finnish newspaper and it was simply too good to not be translated into english and then shared.
Fear not however, there will be my usually slanted race review after the race in China on Sunday. Expect the post to be up on Monday. Until then, enjoy this piece. I know I did.

The desired comeback
Veikkaaja (paper edition)
By Janne Aittoniemi

In September 2000, Michael Schumacher was testing for Ferrari on the Mugello track. Sauber was also allowed to participate in the same test because they were Ferrari’s engine-customer.

They still remember in F1-circles how Schumacher wondered over the Sauber’s pace. He had no idea about who was driving the car but he decided to go and take a look. Schumacher was very surprised when hearing that there’s a young Finn driving the Sauber car, a guy who never before had driven an F1-car. I guess Schumacher would have been speechless had he also known that the 20-year old youngster had raced in only 23 races with formula-cars and never before with a car faster than a Formula Renault.

A year later Ferrari was already trying to get Räikkönen to their team. Many drivers would undoubtedly had signed the contract with the world’s most famous racing team but Räikkönen could afford to say no thank you. He knew that he could only have had a #2 status in the team that was built around Schumacher.

At that point McLaren was a much more tempting offer. Ron Dennis had set his eyes on Räikkönen already before the first part of the season had ended.
In the end Dennis also got Räikkönen’s signature in a multi-year contract. Mika Häkkinen made room for Kimi.

Despite McLaren’s promises they could never offer Räikkönen a car that would be so good that he would win the WDC with it. He effectively lost two WDCs because of problems in reliability.

Six years after the test in Mugello, di Montezemolo told Schumacher that if he wants he can stay, but Räikkönen is coming next season. Montezemelo didn’t promise Schumacher an automatic #1 status, hence the German drew his own conclusions and decided to retire.

Räikkönen won the WDC in his first season with Ferrari but his most sensational performances came from the times in McLaren.

Real fans remember small situations where Räikkönen’s bravery and cold nerves surfaced in a spectacular way. It was Räikkönen, who in Spa went flat out through a smoke cloud without practically seeing anything or knowing where the driver who broke his engine was stranded.
(Sorens note: They told him on the radio on which side Panis was, but still… Link to video here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=el7H859G4ug)

Who would have thought that Räikkönen and Schumacher would start in the Australian GP 2012 – eleven and a half year after the famous test in Mugello.

Last summer Räikkönen made a decision people didn’t believe in anymore. He decided to come back to F1, from where he two years earlier had left bored with the sport’s political

game, boring PR-events and the same questions that reporters always asks. In May,
The atmosphere in NASCAR and WRC were laid-back enough for Räikkönen, however he still missed something from the place he had, according to many, left too early.Räikkönen had driven two NASCAR-races in the US. After those races, he started to think about the continuance of his career.

“I wanted to go back to F1 because I got tired of only racing against time, like they do in rally. Now it feels like I have come back home.”, Räikkönen justified to the international media in Zürich.

“When driving in NASCAR I noticed that I have missed real and visible opponents. After that I called my manager and asked him to look for some interesting options in F1.”

On 29th of November Lotus confirmed that they had made a contract with Räikkönen. Before that he had been strongly connected to Williams, and both parties had negotiated seriously over a contract.

Williams wanted Räikkönen also because they believed they would get with his help a substantial sponsor-support from Qatar and possibly even from Saudi-Arabia.

Räikkönen’s managers David and Steve Robertson were seen in Williams’ premises in Abu Dhabi GP in November.
“We negotiated for a long time with Williams but just couldn’t come up with a contract” Kimi said.

Räikkönen and Robertsons went quickly to Plan B, which meant Lotus. They had negotiated with Lotus-Renault’s bosses already in 2010, but Räikkönen got mad when team manager Eric Boullier leaked out information to the public. Räikkönen felt like the team was using him.
“I am very disappointed in the way they have used my name for their own marketing” Räikkönen told Turun Sanomat in October 2010.
“At no point have I even thought seriously about driving in Renault and I can assure you 100% that I am not driving in Renault next year. My managers were only once in contact with Renault’s team manager weeks ago. That’s all”, Räikkönen continued.

Lotus-Renault wasn’t short of driver candidates but especially Gerard Lopez wanted Räikkönen. He understood that the team needs a real star driver who attracts the interest of sponsors.

Even after the 2010 season, Lotus-Renault intended to build the team around Kubica. They wanted to make him the indisputable #1 driver. Of course the team acknowledged that Kubica could well jump to Ferrari.
“We lost the system which we had built around Kubica. That’s why last season was very frustrating. Kimi has brought new energy to the team”, Boullier said during Jerez testing.

Räikkönen will bring a different kind of leadership to Lotus than Kubica, who was very demanding and didn’t cover up his dissatisfaction. Now they have a WDC in the team and that has already had a positive impact.
“It’s probably a matter of emotional things. Even before we told about Kimi’s contract, people from our team stopped me and asked about him. In the factory, Kimi’s reputation preceded him”, Boullier described.

Hiring Räikkönen was a gamble for Lotus but it would also had been a gamble if they hadn’t taken him.
“Of course it’s a gamble to make a contract with Kimi because he has been away for two years.”
“When a top sportsman stops training, it takes time to get back on the same level. Kimi has already proved that he hasn’t lost anything. Now it’s only a question of how he gets the GP-weekend done”, Boullier thought.

The Lotus crew wondered over Räikkönen’s talent already in Valencia, when he got the chance to drive a two year old Renault for two days. His absence from F1 didn’t show anywhere. Räikkönen set unbelievably even lap times right from the start.
“I felt it in my neck but no more than before when coming to the season’s first tests. I thought it would have hurt more”, Kimi said after the opening test.

People have criticized Räikkönen’s ability to give technical feedback every now and then during the years. When Räikkönen was replaced by Fernando Alonso in McLaren, the team’s engineer Mike Wilson immediately spoke.
“From Alonso we got more information about the car in one day than we got from Kimi in three years”.

However Alan Permane, test-manager in Lotus, who has also worked with Alonso, was of a completely different opinion. He has followed Räikkönen’s driving from very close up during the last months.
“Kimi is extremely good because he can drive even and fast laptimes for a longer time. His feedback is also excellent. His knowledge about for example the engine and the differential gear is excellent”, Permane has said.

Räikkönen is a person who divides opinions. It would be wrong to say that he is either loved or hated, because hate is yet a too negative word to describe anyone’s feelings about Räikkönen. There is a certain kind of rebelliousness and unexpectedness in Räikkönen. It fascinates. This winter the interest for Räikkönen has been bigger than ever before.

“We knew that Kimi is popular, but I’m really surprised over what kind of a positive hurly-burly his comeback has caused”, Gerard Lopez said in Jerez.

Räikkönen doesn’t even want to hear the word ‘motivation’ anymore, but he is certainly more motivated than he was during his last Ferrari-season. Back then his motivation wasn’t weakened because of the poor car. However it is obvious that it has to have some kind of an impact on a driver, when his own team tries to get rid of him.

Räikkönen knew in the beginning of 2009 that Ferrari wanted Alonso to be the #1 driver the next season already. He would definitely had wanted to continue in Ferrari. The termination of the contract took a toll on Räikkönen, although the compensation was good. It was 18 million dollars. However money didn’t make him happy.
“When I see a Ferrari on the track it doesn’t have any impact on me. Driving in Ferrari was a great phase of my career but it’s over and it didn’t end well”, Räikkönen opened up about his feelings for Ferrari.
“Things don’t always go as you wish in life. At that time it was what happened to me but it’s history and I don’t regret anything”.
(Soren’s note. For a more in-depth view on this. See my previous post: http://f1bias.com/2012/04/05/truth-about-kimi-ferrari-santander-2008/)

Lotus is also a legendary brand. Driving in a car painted black and gold brings nostalgic thoughts to Räikkönen.
“Many remember the coloring from 1970′s and 80′s. I have watched video from when Senna raced for Lotus. The coloring was quite exceptional back then already.”.

Räikkönen didn’t come back to F1 just because he missed it. Money also played a part in it, although Räikkönen doesn’t lack money. He has earned over 200 million euros during his career. About a third of that goes to his managers. Räikkönen has many valuable estates and tending them takes a lot of money, he often flies with a rented jet as well. His life is expensive.
“Of course money also matters. Driving is my work and I want to get paid for it, but I don’t have to drive for money anymore. Enjoying the driving is the main thing”.

Last year Räikkönen found himself in a situation where he had to pay for his driving for the first time in his career. He also understood that the rally-career was sort of over. He had already seen it, although he still enjoys rallies.
“I would be happy to drive both rally and F1 but it isn’t possible at the moment.”

“I had no expectations when I went to rally, but I’m completely satisfied with what I accomplished there. Of course I made mistakes and the car went into the forest at times but I never stressed over it. I paid for the whole thing myself.”
“But rally drivers will also struggle if they are put into an F1-car”.

“You see the same faces on the paddock like before. The cars look a bit different but driving is the same.”

The comeback to F1-tracks have rarely brought a driver success after he has once retired. However Räikkönen is in many ways a special case.

———–

Thanks to Mr. Aittoniemi for a great article.
Translation by Nicole.

Take an awful lot of care now ;)
Love, Soren

Posted in Formula 1 | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments

THE TRUTH ABOUT KIMI RAIKKONEN, FERRARI AND SANTANDER IN 2008

Posted on April 5, 2012 by

2008 was the year when Kimi won his second world championship. He breezed through the season scoring podiums and wins in most of the races. He did so with the full support of his team, Ferrari. Listening to his feedback and changing the components that he asked for. And so the legendary Ferrari team could celebrate another back to back drivers championship.

Or that is certainly how it could have been. That was in fact the way it was headed as well. Until money, sponsorship and the desire for a large Spanish corporation to see “their” driver placed in the Maranello based team got in the way.

Sensationalism? Conspiracy theories you may say? Far from it. The following segment consists of chronically collected articles readily available to the public. They are coupled with natural conclusions to be drawn therefrom. Now with hindsight and the luxury of time passing to better see the bigger picture, the truth is as ugly as it is sad. Full credit goes to the author of this piece, wrcva. A fellow forumer who took the time and energy to dig up and piece the puzzle together, forming the picture we already suspected.
My contribution is only minor edits and brushups for readability. With his permission of course.

I am aware that this is probably not news to a lot of people. But this piece was well researched and deserves attention in my opinion. My hope is that much of the nonsense regarding Kimis 2008 season can be put to rest with this.

—————

Why Kimi was not on top of his game in 2008 by wrcva

The period between April-July 2008 is probably one of the worst periods not only in Kimi’s F1 career but probably in his life. All his life he and his family believed in hard work and doing their best to achieve good things on merit. In Kimi’s case this means putting his natural talents to best use in performing, and winning races.

Backdrop for 2008: The guy just won WDC the previous year, and he is already leading in points 4 races into the 2008 season. Life is good…

(April 27, 2008), FIA post-race press conf after winning Spain — Kimi – “It was a perfect weekend for us in Barcelona,” explained Raikkonen. “We were going really fast all the time and we didn’t have the slightest problem. Many times I have won and afterwards still had the feeling that it could have gone better. This time I did not have that feeling: this was probably the best weekend I’ve ever had in my career.”

The guy won Spain just 3 days ago… then, all of a sudden PR stuff & “rumors” kicks in. I am not sure who started them but the mission was to melt the iceman because it would be terrible PR to get rid of a 2 times WDC, in the event that he managed to win the 2nd one in 2008. In the following, partially narrated timeline, I have tried to put the main news item with the earliest approx. date of first showing up (in google news based on article posting date) out of 100s or 1000s regurgitated ones for each item. They give a good glimpse into what was in Kimi’s mind as he was facing a psychological PR war, aside from racing issues during 2008.

May 1, 2008 – Luca di Montezemolo: Massa’s future with the team is secure. It will be too damaging to partner Alonso with Kimi.
Keke Rosberg: Kimi has to make way for Alonso…
Domenicali: Kimi is motivated from head to toe, and I know he is not thinking about retiring.“ here.

Note: You can tell that they have been talking about Santander coming in as the new long term sponsor but the plan is to not to talk about it externally… This is the first time appearance of Kimi’s “motivation” by Domenicali. It is not yet used in a negative way but it is a crucial PR keyword because at this point they cannot start talking about Kimi’s performance as he is in the lead. But this is where the decision has been made that Kimi has to go. Also note the disconnect between LdM & Dom’s statements. Yes, the date is correct - May 1 2008, and instead of talking about the win 3 days ago, they are forced to answer questions about driver line-up.

May 8, 2008 – Niki Lauda “Last year Raikkonen was champion and now he is number one. Why must we now discuss whether Alonso is going to go there? They already have the perfect team with Massa, so why should they bang their heads together?” 

Note: This is an honest statement by Lauda wondering WTF is going on… as there is significant chatter inside the F1 world… here

May 24, 2008 – Alonso signs for Ferrari — The word in the F1 paddock in Monte Carlo is that Fernando Alonso has just inked a deal to drive for Ferrari in 2010. No confirmation is expected for a year, and there may be denials of any arrangement, as there would obviously be some serious knock-on effects for other parties in the F1 paddock. here

Note: Spanish press is going nuts over this as well at this time.. You can use google news with date filters if you want to see for yourself. Emphasis: do not confirm and deny until next year — which they did…

June 6, 2008 – FIA interview — Kimi: “I still have a contract until the end of next year,” Raikkonen said during the press conference ahead of the Canadian Grand Prix at the Circuit Gilles Villeneuve on Thursday. “I haven’t made any decision as to whether I will keep going or not. That’s the last contract I have and we will wait and see during this year and next year what happens.” “I haven’t made my mind up and we will see.”

Note: (this is the GP Hamilton rear ended Kimi) — why would this contract issue come up in the FIA press conference? You can tell internal discussions about his departure is well underway. Yet we are only 7 races into the season…

July 10, 2008 – According to popular German magazine Sport Bild, it would seem that Spanish bank Santander would be moving from sponsoring McLaren to become one of Ferrari’s top sponsors from 2009 onwards. The big bank would have their adverts on the front and rear wings, alongside lettering on the drivers overalls. Ferrari have been touting for a new top sponsor since cigarette advertisers were not allowed in many countries, Marlboro being the major backer for many years. With a contract with Marlboro still in place, hash markings would still be on the cars. For the Scuderia though, Santander have said the major condition of their deal is that former World Champion Fernando Alonso would drive for the team. He won’t confirm his future, and will not comment until September. here

Note: Santander-Ferrari-Alonso deal is done at this time but negotiations with Kimi are in full force. Look at the desired date for the sponsorship… Now, how did Alonso come up with that September date, unless he read Kimi’s contract and is familiar with the performance / and renewal options Kimi could exercise?? That is an accidental slip up by the Spaniard because the September date was significant only to Kimi’s contract. He cannot comment on what will happen because they do not know what Kimi will do yet – as Ferrari is still negotiating! (see Sep 12 news, in the following)

Aug 3, 2008 – FIA post-race int. Hungary — Q: People are talking about you retiring, not necessarily at the end of this year but at the end of next year. Are there any thoughts on that?
KR: I never said anything like that. I only said that I have a contract until the end of next year and then somebody made up that I will stop at the end of this year or the end of next year, but I never said that.

Note: Guess who is propagating retirement rumors? This is a pretty major PR war against Kimi… and they are wearing him out. You know, all by itself, it is pretty hard to fight for the WDC – even when you have full support from the team…

Aug 24, 2008 – FIA post-race press con – Massa: “My win in Valencia moves me ahead of Kimi into second place in the championship. I’ve been asked if I feel Ferrari should favour me for the title since there are just six races remaining. All I can say is that I want to keep winning, to keep beating not just my teammate (Kimi Raikkonen) but others too,” Massa was quoted as saying on the Ferrari website. The Brazilian, who is on 64 points, six behind the leader Lewis Hamilton, further added that he has got nothing to do with such decisions. “I just do the best possible job for the team and leave the rest to the management,” he added.

Raikkonen is third on the table with 57 points. Meanwhile, Kimi has rubbished the claim that he lacks motivation. “Next week, we will go to Spa (venue of the next Grand Prix). I love this track. I will give it all to win again. If someone has doubt as far as my motivation is concerned: go ahead. I want to win. More than ever,” he said on the Ferrari website.

Note: Since April, Kimi’s lack of motivation stories have been propagating into millions of articles, blog and forum posts. (Google is your friend). Motivation is the keyword because they still cannot talk about performance…

Sep 12, 2008 – Ferrari confirm Raikkonen to end of 2010 — Ferrari have announced an extension to Kimi Raikkonen’s contract for a further two seasons, keeping the world champion with the Italian team until the end of 2010. With Raikkonen’s teammate Felipe Massa also under contract for that period, it means Ferrari’s race line-up will remain unchanged until at least the start of their 2011 campaign. Raikkonen joined Ferrari from McLaren last season, while Massa has been with the team since 2006. The announcement should end media speculation suggesting that Raikkonen may retire at the end of this season. here

Note: This is just an automatic contract renewal option Kimi is exercising to increase the Santander/Ferrari payout based on exceeding his performance benchmarks on his contract. He knows he is done with Ferrari… and if he could find a way, he could have left by the end of 2008. He is loosing the PR war, but trying to secure finances in negotiations.

Sep 14, 2008 – FIA post race int. Monza — Raikkonen. “You don’t have to be Einstein to understand that this is not the right way to fight for the title. It’s not over yet, but now it will take a miracle, like one that makes lightning strike twice.”

Note: He is not just talking about racing here. Even though he is still within mathematical possibility with 4 races left in the calendar (he is 20 pts behind Massa, and yet better odds than 2007); he is up to his neck in the swamp trying to fight/fend off elegators on multiple fronts:

1) Santander/Ferrari lawyers…
2) His relationship with Schumacher. It was never emphasized in 2008 but I think it was a very significant issue. For 2008, Michael’s role was, per LdM: “official 3rd driver, in charge of car development”. See footnote 1 (and check out Michael’s Ferrari and wiki profile for his role in 2008). Kimi did not like this at all because Michael was in charge of something (the car itself) that he had been used to controlling/influencing all his career.
3) Pressure from LdM and Dom to help out Massa because if Massa wins the 2008 WDC, Santander will be thrilled given their upcoming 2009 IPO in Brazil. In my opinion, Dom or LdM never mandated this, but they highly encouraged Kimi to fall back because financial implications for Santander, the future sponsor, was in Billions of $. (not Millions, it is Billions) And because Massa is a native son of Brazil who can mobilize local investors even better than Alonso. here.
In the end, Santander’s IPO gains were about $9 Billion. See footnote 2
Note: IPO means Initial Public Offering. Or the stock market launch for that company. In this case, in Brazil.

Sep 24, 2008 - Pitpass –Spanish media is claiming that Ferrari’s recent decision to re-sign Kimi Raikkonen until the end of 2010, is a smokescreen, aimed at putting everyone off the real story, which sees Fernando Alonso heading to Maranello as early as next year. Spanish newspaper Marca claims that Santander, which headed to McLaren with Fernando Alonso in 2007, is behind a move which will see the two-time champion join Felipe Massa. The Spanish banking giant is due to take its account to Ferrari next year, and, having lost out when Alonso quit McLaren after just one season, wants its national hero back on board and in a winning (red) car. It’s claimed that the bank will not only meet Alonso’s financial requirements but will also meet any compensation demanded by Raikkonen.

It is fair to say that the announcement that Raikkonen is to stay with Ferrari for two more years caught many by surprise, especially since the Finn appears to have lost his sparkle in recent months, a situation not helped by the fact that he is now almost certain – barring a miracle recovery – of having to play second fiddle to his Brazilian teammate. While several teams, most notably Honda, have been wooing Alonso, the Spaniard needs to be back in a winning car, and other than BMW – which is backed by Santander’s rival Credit Suisse – Ferrari appears to be the only option.

Note: Looks like negotiations for buying out 2009 failed, probably to Kimi’s dismay — from here on it is a Cold War within the team and Kimi is the unofficial #2 by corporate decision because they still need to ramp up Massa’s standing in Brasil for the upcoming IPO. The only thing they could not foresee is Massa’s accident in 2009. Kimi’s departure was a done deal as early as May, 25 2008, latest Sep 14 2008. They just had to make sure he did not accidently win 2008 WDC as Ferrari would have looked really stupid… Very curious about that pit screw up in Monaco, if it was real or orchestrated because this is where it all started, it is a milestone event for things starting to go wrong for Kimi for the rest of the year, along with some unlucky situations.

QUOTE
May 25, 2008 FIA post race Monaco — Kimi “A very poor race for me, right from the off. There was a problem with a wheel before the start and we broke the rules, which meant I was given a drive-through penalty. During the race, my main problem was trying to get the tyres to work as well as possible. Then we decided to change the strategy as we expected it to rain again, but it didn’t happen. Twice I had to change the nose after breaking the front wing. So, as you can see, a long run of things going wrong which explains the 0 points. I am sorry for Sutil, who I hit with just a few laps to go. I lost control of the car under braking coming out of the tunnel and I could do nothing to avoid him. It’s a shame how things went today, as we had the potential to do well. It’s true that I’ve lost the championship lead, but I always said the championship would be a very long one. Now we must prepare as well as possible for Canada where we will try to make up for this disappointment.”

That is why, Kimi always said “There are many reasons. In F1 there is always a lot of money and there can always be different options. That’s what happened in the end. It’s nothing to do with racing or what I do in the team.”

In short, Kimi was in the wrong team, at the wrong time stuck between Ferrari and future sponsor Santander, because he had the wrong nationality (the Latin lineup), relative to Santander’s business plans, and Ferrari’s role within, IMHO. What I do not understand is how the journos/media could not connect these dots to show what really went on in 2008. You do not have to do any major investigation because pretty much everything is in the public domain. While I understand all commercial pressures on the racing business, 2008-9 was anything but sporting for Ferrari. They should have just let him go after 2007 instead of playing all kinds of games, and engaging in a PR war to give it an appearance of performance problems.

I suspect, even Massa will not bet against Kimi’s performance this year, or when he appeared to beat him back in 2008-9 as he knows what the deal was relative to his role within the Santander world. I think Kimi understood the business aspect of the issues, and in line with his character never washed any dirty Ferrari laundry in public. Yes, he did have several unlucky situations but his fate was already signed and sealed mid season 2008 purely for business reasons. 2009 was essentially continuation of the 2008 theatrics until Massa’s accident. On another front, almost identical scenario (to Santander-Massa-Brasil situation) is in play for Perez in the red car — Perez-Santander-Mexico, from the same playbook.

Footnotes.
1) As to how things evolved with the car I am not totally sure but the person who had a front seat was Chris Dyer.  “We had a tough and hard season but Kimi did exactly the right thing within the team and everyone respected what he did and how he reacted to this situation. We had a fantastic car but unfortunately we made mistakes when thinking about what’s best for our driver (Raikkonen).” I believe the situation he is talking about is the Ferrari corporate decision to support Massa – not exactly sure when, but possibly Sep 24. (he was told that they have to do this because they are stuck with this request from Santander).
I think “we made mistakes when thinking about what’s best for our driver” bit is referring to Michael Schumacher, because I remember reading somewhere that Michael wanted Massa as the official feedback/debrief driver sometime around Monaco. I think all of Michael’s initiatives were well intentioned organizational efficiency related enhancements trying to help Ferarri without favoring any driver but because he was closer to Massa probably Massa benefited more from them.

If you recall, recently Kimi said there was only one person at Ferrari he did not like… he did not name that person but I believe it is Michael, because Michael was officially in charge of the car. I think he was/is on good terms with Dom and LdM because he understood the Ferrari business situation that he could not control but Michael was in charge of something (the car itself) he has been used to controlling all his career. In any event, this area – Michael’s role — needs more research because it is mostly opinions. I suspect Dyer will talk or imply after his departure mid year.

2) Massa was at the right place, at the right time and with the right Sponsor, given his nationality. In fact Botin personally made sure Massa was taken care of even before the 2010 Ferrari sponsorship started: (Massa-“I’m glad to get this support from Santander. Lately I met President Emilio Botin twice and he is absolutely excited about the potential of the Brazilian market…) Being Brasilian, going into the IPO Massa became the brand ambassador for the bank (read the last paragraph in the link relative to the date of the article. Alonso was supposed to be in the list but not Massa, on that date) sometime during the summer of 2009, well before Santander-Ferrari relationship kicked in on Jan 1, 2010 (Alonso had been the brand ambassador for Spain for a while). This was a direct Massa-Santander payroll relationship ~$5-7M per year.

Fast forward to Nov 2011, Botin decided to personally fire him because he was upset with Massa for the results of 2010/2011 seasons. To understand the importance of Latin America to Santander, just look at their annual reports. So, to those who have been wondering why Massa has been with Ferrari despite underperforming? Because his nationality has been more important than his performance. And remember this stuff was not supposed to take place prior to Jan 1, 2010. This area could use some more research – journos: talk to some ex employee perhaps…

——————-

Again, a big thank you to wrcva for writing the above segment. There is still a lot of meat to be picked from this bone. And even if it is a sad tale of Ferraris stupidity, it would also be fascinating to get the full story unfolded some time in the future. For now the truth, even in crude lines, is pretty clear to everyone.

One might ask why F1 journalists didnt pick up this at the time. Plenty of bloggers did. I am sure several journalists did, but it was such a hot potato at the time that the easier way to go was to not rock the boat. If you blurt out something as controversial like this, it would be easy to lose face in the paddock. Not to mention lose favor with the Scuderia.

Had it been any other driver, we would probably have known every detail by now. But Kimi is pure class. A gentleman that does not kiss and tell so to speak. He has never spoken out on these hard times or blamed anyone. An example to follow for a lot of people. The only thing he candidly said on the matter after his departure from Ferrari was announced, was basically “money talks”. And that is the typical Kimi way of summing up this entire post.

The irony is that Ferraris decision has only made them look foolish when it comes to accomplishments in the sport. Their last drivers championship is 5 years ago, courtesy of the driver they did everything to get rid of. It boggles the mind that they went down that road. So much for the passion for racing they tout to have, when the primus motor here was the almighty pesetas. Or euro as it turns out.

That does not mean that I would want a Formula 1 without Ferrari. On the contrary. But since 2007, the team has been riddled with bad decisions which is again down to a leadership that is not well. Some decisions were intentional as we have seen. But even they have seemingly backfired. As it stands, 2012 will be another year without any titles. The gamble has not paid off. It might do so next year. But even then it is 3 years too late for what the sponsors were expecting. This is a team in crisis. And the crisis is selfmade. The changes and restructuring have not been for the better. But that is another story.

Seems that Fernandos “good luck wish” in 2006 became more true than he hoped for.
Alonso: “As long as the car is not red, I wish you the best!”

 

This is Soren,
signing out. Peace y’all.

Posted in Formula 1 | Tagged , , , , , , , , | 27 Comments

MALAYSIAN GP – INTERGALACTIC KIMI STYLE

Posted on March 25, 2012 by

Image

Last time we were in Malaysia with Kimi we were treated with the now infamous “icecream incident”. The race had been stopped due to a crazy downpour. People were waiting for the race to restart and we see Kimi with an icecream in hand and helping himself to a coke in the fridge. Some people called that a sign of lack of motivation. But that only makes them blithering idiots that dont care to seek out the truth. His car was done due to a KERS issue and was asked to retire the car.

Anyway, the Lotus team had a sense of humour about it. Even if Kimi seems a bit tired of the joke by now. And who can blame him. Lotus came up with the hashtag #sepangsundae for the weekend here. I guess it was all fun and games until a fire destroyed their hospitality unit! http://www.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/98313
And the cause? Electrical fault in a fridge.. There is an obvious joke in there somewhere.

Lotus still went through with it and decided to hand out an icecream to all media personnel along with a little note signed Kimi Raikkonen: http://on.fb.me/H2qpD2
Meaning he had to approve of it or they would not have put his name there. “Dear media friends”.. Right.

Well, enough of that. His weekend got off to another bad start with a 5 place grid penalty for a gearbox change. And reports of problems with his KERS. His steering is still not quite to his liking either. At least they changed the floor of the car and with some other changes the car got a lot more to his liking during the practice sessions.

QUALIFICATION

Qualification went a whole lot better than in Melbourne last week. Didnt take much to do that of course, but Kimi made it safely into Q2 with a single hot lap on the harder tire. Sweet. Then came Q2. On with the softs. He is one of the first to go out. And bam! Quickest man in all of Q2. Oh to see his name graze the top of the sheets like that really got me dreaming. Is pole possible? How fast IS that Lotus! Will we ever frickin know?? Q3 comes on and he does a good lap that is even faster than his Q2 but had to correct a couple of places which cost a couple of tenths.

Furthermore he is on the exact same time as Mark Webber but he got 5th grid position instead of 4th still. Possible because Mark set his time first. Im not sure to be honest. But 10th on the grid it was.

THE RACE

As the race is about to start the rain starts to drizzle. Most people put on intermediates and finally the lights go out. McLarens in front again – but Grosjean shoots from 6th to 3rd! His happiness is cut short when he first spins out and takes Schumacher with him. Then on the third lap he ends up in the gravel and retires from another race.

Kimi is threading carefully. And yet maintaining his 8th position while feeling the tires. What is astonishing is that he has never run on these wet tires before except an installation lap. Let me repeat that. Never. And now he is thrown into a crazy wet race and told to race them in anger. Lets not forget that he has just one race under his belt after being 2 years away from the sport. Hello..

But apparently Kimi needs 3 laps of just about anything and he is then pretty much good to go. I am not joking here. That is exactly what he does. Learning new machinery. A new track, new tires. It doesnt matter. Whatever it is, it comes down to his unbelievable talent and uncanny feel for the car. No fuss. No bragging. In fact, I doubt he even thinks about it too much. It comes to him naturally and it has always been like this for him.

The rain falls harder and people start to put on full wets. The Lotus team keeps Kimi out for 2 laps longer than they should and he drops from 8th to 13th after his stop. This happened just before the race is eventually red flagged for about 50 minutes because of wild downpour. During the delay, we learn through team radio that Kimi has no KERS..

The race is restarted and after the safety car pulls in, the cars start to change from wets to intermediates. Kimi is in a Red Bull sandwich and putting some pressure on Vettel. Vettel manages to pass Rosberg ahead and so does Kimi down the pit straight. Goes on the outside and gets the inside for turn 2. Brilliant. Up to 5th. Webber behind is not able to keep up at this stage of the race.

The race itself was going great until Perez, who was the fastest driver today, got a badly disguised order to maintain his 2nd position because “we need the points”. This is only because the Ferrari powered Sauber team was told to play nice by their engine suppliers who are currently shitting their pants because they have yet again failed to deliver a car that can challenge for the championship. What is left is a bunch of headless chickens running scared in Maranello while the pressure intensifies for every passing year. So Perez was told off over the radio and this obviously made him lose his concentration and subsequently the race as he went wide just a lap or two later.

But what a race the little Mexican had. I sense that a baby with a lisp is soon to be replaced by him.

As for Kimi, he kept his position to the end. The Red Bull of Webber came in for slicks one lap before Kimi and that was enough to jump ahead of our favorite Finn. Still a fantastic result. Melbourne was a great return. But this race really showed more of the stuff that Kimi is made of. He passed cars, had the same pace as the McLarens and Red Bulls for most of the race. Set the fastest lap too on lap 53. I ask myself how he was able to do these things if his KERS was not working? I admire the guy but to pull this off it must have at least been working at some stages. Right? Perhaps someone knows if this was the case.
Edit: As the rain eventually ceased his KERS got working again.

SORENS RACE RATING

Enjoyable semi-crazy race. Its a 7 out of 10 for me. Which goes down to a 1 out of 10 due to yet another race being decided by shady orders in the red corridors. But then it gets up to 8 out of 10 due to Kimis interstellar performance while hauling his car through ever changing conditions on never before raced wet tires and a working/non-working KERS. Overcame a 5 slot grid penalty, slow pitstops and bad strategy calls from the team to finish 5th! Clearly the driver of the day if there ever was one. Well done Kimster! Now like yourself, we hope for a more “normal” race in China in 3 weeks. Go Kimi Go!!

Take care now. But first tell me your race rating. And feel free to leave a comment ;)

Love,
Soren

Images © Lotus F1 Team/LAT

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AUSTRALIAN GP – BEHOLD, THE ICEMAN IS BACK!

Posted on March 19, 2012 by


Oh, joy of joys. To see the biggest natural race talent to ever graze this earth crawl back into the cockpit of a Formula 1 car… Well, it just doesnt get much better than that. Not only is he back, so is this blog! By popular demand as they say ;) We Kimi fans have enjoyed a lot of cheerful days ever since the news of his return to F1 with Lotus. But as the qualifying session rolled on, so came the memories of the anguish and pain that tend to follow Kimi fans.

QUALIFYING

Hopes were up and expectations were high. The Lotus had shown genuine pace during testing so how far up would we see Kimi on the grid? Many a Kimi fan had pondered upon this Saturday. The day when we would finally see the true pace of the teams. Well, it was over almost before it began. With my newly downloaded app that shows the cars position on the track, I could see that Kimi did not have any traffic free laps in Q1. Until the end.

The single one he had at the very end was rippled by a mistake when he went wide at Turn 12. And here comes the heartbreaker. For some reason he thought he had enough time to do another timed lap. The team did not inform him that was not the case. So he slowed before the final turns for another run but the flag was already out. Had he not slowed, his lap would have comfortably sent him on to Q2 – even with the mistake. Result – eliminated in Q1, 18th on the grid that later became 17th due to a penalty for Perez.

Bad way to start his return season. But Kimi said No – I will not go quietly into the night! Not without a proper fight anyway. And fight he did.
I was naturally confident as well. I was never down or doubtful for even a second. Unlike many of my fellow Kimi fans. I did everything I could to cheer them up in spite of the result :)

RACE DAY

2 years and almost 5 months ago Kimi had his last F1 start in his career. Or so we thought. Now its go time again. Come on!

The lights go out and Kimi gets a good start from the rear part of the grid but a collision ahead of him grinds him to an almost stop and the Saubers he had effectively cleared got in front of him again. The Melbourne circuit is not an easy track to pass people on and the Saubers would trouble him until the end of the race.

He was up to 14th on the 1st lap however and continued to make his way through the field. Also helped by retirements along the way. Including his teammate Grosjean that had an unfortunate run in with Maldonado that broke the steering on the Lotus. At one point he ran as high as second before his first pitstop on lap 19.

His pitstop was rather slow and was a contributing factor in not making it out in front of Kobayashi. He made amends on that on lap 25 however, when he pulled off the overtaking move of the race. Which can be seen in this clip: http://youtu.be/P1mWDVysg4Y
He also made a nice pass on Massa down the straight. Boo-yah bitch!
There was a bit of contact though which Kimi said slightly damaged the floor of the car and thus affecting the performance a tiny bit.

This clip also brings about the team radio of the day. A furious Kimi raging over why he is being blue flagged! His race engineer calmly responds that it is for the cars behind him. Haha. Pure comedy :D
I will say this though. I noticed that the marshalls were pretty loose handed with the blue flags. At one point I saw them waving them at the top 3 going by! And then again 20 seconds later for the cars the flags were really meant for. So it could be that Kimi saw something similar and reacted.

Back to his pitstops. They were 24,9 and 23,3 seconds. Compare that to Alonso stops that were 22 and 21,9 seconds. That is a huge difference of 4,3 seconds – just in stops.. There is certainly a lost position or two in there somewhere. I am sure that the Lotus team are aware of this and will work to improve this for Malaysia.

As you see there were several contributing factors that worked against Kimi in the race.
-Bad qualifying
-Good start hampered by a collision in front.
-Slow pitstops
-Slightly damaged floor
-And a steering that is not perfectly to his liking
-Hardly ever free air in the race to let the car run free
-Safety car period that cooled his tires so much that he was unable to keep Kobayashi behind him at the restart. And it was timed badly with his second stop

Not to make excuses or anything – and I dont need to – because his race was brilliant. But all these things add up. And the conclusion is that there is a lot more performance in the Lotus than we have seen so far. We saw a glimpse when Romain grabbed third in qualifying. And we saw great pace from Kimi when for several laps he clocked the same laptimes as the top 3.

After the safety car period he runs 10th after Kobayashi took advantage of his cold tires. As the heat comes back he is clearly faster but there is no way around Kamui this time. On the final lap all hell breaks loose when Maldonado crashes out unprovoked, Nico Rosberg gets a puncture from contact with Perez who could not keep up the pace due to having run 34 laps on the soft compound. That meant Kimi could steal 7th place from Perez in the final corner on the final lap. Great stuff!

Only a few days to the Malaysian GP. I cannot wait to see more of the cars potential in the hands of the Iceman. And no more screw ups please ;) Go Kimi!

SORENS RACE RATING

6 out of 10. The DRS zones were not effective enough or Kimi would have been higher up in the results. Limited camera time on Kimi also drags the score down. (Hey, this is a biased review, remember?) Some good racing here and there from the other competitors and a fighting return from our Kimi lands the score.

How would you rate the race?

Images © Lotus F1 Team/LAT Photographic

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