Kimi in positive attitude
By Alan Baldwin Sunday, March 12th 2006, 17:30 GMT
Kimi Raikkonen turned a miserable weekend into a memorable one with a storming third place from the back of the grid in the Bahrain Grand Prix on Sunday.
The Finn, courted by Ferrari and others after his McLaren team announced world champion Fernando Alonso was joining from Renault next year, cancelled at a stroke any suggestion his car lacked pace.
Forced to start 22nd after a suspension failure in qualifying, Raikkonen made up eight places on the first lap despite having a car heavy with fuel due to a one-stop strategy.
"The car is good, so that is the main thing and I definitely think I will have a chance to win races and fight for the championship," he told a news conference.
"We were fast today, so that’s good."
McLaren know they must provide the 26-year-old with a competitive car in the early races if they are to keep him and Saturday’s failure, one of many the Finn has suffered in recent seasons, did not help matters. Yet Raikkonen seemed untroubled.
More Positive
"Those who spoke to him late in the evening (on Saturday) said he was actually much more positive than some of us, and that’s one of Kimi’s strengths," said McLaren managing director Martin Whitmarsh.
"It pulls you back a little bit when the driver is saying ‘you know, I can see the positive in this, the car was quick and I was about to put it on pole’ and you are a little bit down.
"(McLaren’s World Champion) Mika (Hakkinen) early in his career had a number of disappointments but he shamed some of us with his confidence and ability to bounce back so quickly and Kimi’s like that."
Raikkonen is no stranger to starting from the back and last season won in Japan from 17th place on the grid.
"We didn’t really know where we were after testing and people said we weren’t very good but during the last month we really improved our position," said the Finn.
"When we came here the car was pretty good so it wasn’t surprising but we didn’t really know where we were. So it was nice to see we were strong in the race and we could have been very strong in qualifying also."
Sunday, Race
The 2006 F1 season got underway today with a great opener, at the Bahrain circuit. Everyone was filled with anticipation to observe the difference between the top teams of Ferrari, Renault, McLaren and the newly joined team into the competitive field again, Honda.
With McLaren’s drivers separted by a huge gap in qualifying, with Kimi at the very back of the grid and Juan Pablo amongst the fighters at the front, today their performance was better than satisfactory. While the Ferrari’s were fighting off the eager Alonso in the Renault, Kimi passed many cars after the first few corners. He was set to reach the runners up front today.
Jenson Button had a less than perfect start and he fell back to 6th postion, with Juan Pablo passing him to reach 4th. The mid field were in a battle of their own, Red Bull, Torro Rosso, BMW Sauber and the Williams spent the afternoon in great action. Rosberg in the Williams, on his F1 debut, won some superb overtaking opportunities and he along some others, gave the crowds and viewers to wow about.
And what a fantastic debut for Nico Rosberg! He has a great weekend to look back on and say "yep, that was my F1 debut". Indeed he will pull more of that performance in the future, well done to Williams for a solid finish. David Coulthard deserves credit, he is great at handling on coming drivers, it was great to see that.
Montoya had a very quiet race apart from being overtaken by Button, which leads me to say Button did a good effort too, he would have been more in the mix had he not a poor start. Very suprised with Barrichello for that matter.
Once Michael Schumacher had got away with a lead of 1.6 seconds, Alonso was on his charge to take the sister Ferrari of Massa’s. However Massa spun out in Turn 1 due to lack of concentration and Alonso just missed hitting into him. More drama proceeded in the pits as Massa came in for tyre change which lasted 46 seconds due to the wheel gun not working!
By lap 37, it was time for Michael to pits and Alonso was told through team radio "these are winning laps mate" and Alonso stormed around the track before he entered the pits for his round of fuel and tyres. It was a nail biting battle of the pits, and Alonso just edged infront of Michael who was looming down the straight. Alonso fendered Michael off and that was the win set for Alonso. However, a bitter taste in the mouth for Fisichella who suffered an engine problem, lacking power his car entered the pits to retire and Massa did not do enough to get back into the points from his nightmare of a pitstop.
Kimi benefitted by his one-stop strategy and his steady pace of driving and passed Button and Montoya after they pitted. Considering the amount of fuel Kimi carried throughout the start, he pulled himself to a suitable and comfortable postion in 3rd place. He paced himself and cut down the gap of 25 seconds from Alonso to 19.3 seconds.
The race was a great start to the season, with Renault and McLaren drawing in the points table with 10 points, and Ferrari below with 8 points only.
Sunday Race day, Team McLaren Mercedes quotes:
Kimi Raikkonen: "This is a great result after the disappointment of yesterday, but we have known that the car was very strong all weekend," said Raikkonen. "We thought that we had a chance to score some points today, even though we were starting from the back of the grid, but to get a podium is fantastic, The first few laps were crucial to this result, and luckily I managed to overtake a lot of cars at the first corner; I was up to 13th by lap two even though the cars in front were all lighter than me. We then gained some more places later on as a result of our strategy. The outcome is even more important to the whole team, who have been working so hard throughout the winter, as we didn’t know where we were after testing and everyone had been saying that we were struggling. However we really have improved over the past few weeks. It proves that we are competitive and if not for yesterday we could have been even better."
Montoya commented, "I have not really been totally comfortable with the set up of my car all weekend, which was clear during all the practice sessions. Obviously I am a little disappointed finishing in fifth as I know that the car could do so much more, but it just wasn’t working for me this weekend. However it was a steady race and for the team to get two cars finishing in the points could be very important later in the season. The four points I have scored are good considering the circumstances. I am now looking forward to the next race in Malaysia, where we can improve further on these results."
Team chief Ron Dennis added, "A difficult weekend which stretched the whole team. The results are therefore just reward for their efforts. We are all looking forward to Malaysia where our justifiable expectation is to do better."
Mercedes motorsport chief Norbert Haug concluded, "Kimi’s performance was excellent coming from last place on the grid to finish third on the podium. Kimi was fighting all the way through the race and our one-stop strategy was ideal and helped to make this result possible. With his third place and Juan Pablo’s fifth we have gained 10 points and are together with Williams Cosworth the only team which has finished with two cars in the points. So we are heading in the right direction. I want to thank the team for all their efforts following yesterday’s problem. We are looking forward to next week’s Malaysian Grand Prix."
While Raikkonen recovered what was left of his McLaren to the pits, the red flag was brought out to clear the wreckage with just five minutes left to run in the segment. Therefore the Finn will start the race tomorrow from the back of the grid. Appauling.
The battle continued however, with the remaining cars left with no choice but to rush out and get qualifying, as Kimi’s incident was unexpected, and it was shocking for the fans (and me)
Juan Pablo was left to do the job, and he managed to split the two Renaults who seemed conservative and even more so in the last session. Fuel was the big question mark and the teams of Ferrari and Honda were on a roll to secure a pole position.
The session felt like it went on forever, so I’ll make this short. Michael "King" Schumacher has equalled Aryton Senna’s record of 65 pole positions. To be honest, Michael performed superbly today, and he really deserves a good weekend ahead.
Will Jenson Buttons Honda allow him to fight for his first win tomorrow? Who knows. Will Alonso and Fisichella be able to challenge the Ferraris? Who knows. Will Juan Pablo suprise everyone and lead on lap 1? Who knows. Will Kimi Raikkonen, pull of a fantastic fight back to the top of the field? I know he can, depends on the freaking car.
Come on Team McLaren, this is not how it should be. Heads up and race to glory undimmed before the breaking of the titles. I look forward to see the team I believe are the BEST in fighting back.
Keep Flying Kimi.
JUAN PABLO MONTOYA
“I think we did a good job with the new format, and it ran very smoothly for me. I am a little surprised to finish so far up as we had not been looking good in the earlier sessions when I have been suffering from understeer, but that is what the car could do when it counted. I think we have a good strategy for the race, so we will have to wait and see what will happen tomorrow."
KIMI RAIKKONEN
“There is not much I can say about today. It is very disappointing to not even complete one timed lap as I believe that the team had a good strategy for the new qualifying system, and I could have been amongst the quickest. Although it is far from ideal to start from the back of the grid, there are overtaking opportunities at this track, and I have done this before and still achieved good results. We will just have to see what happens in the race tomorrow.”
RON DENNIS
“A painful first experience of the new qualifying. Our overall competitiveness is still difficult to judge as the fuel load used for the final qualifying still plays a significant role in respect of race strategy. Juan Pablo’s set up is still not perfect and Kimi’s car suffered a rear suspension lower wishbone failure which was caused by a manufacturing fault, which, after many thousands of kilometres of testing, is difficult to come to terms with.”
NORBERT HAUG
“It is a shame that Kimi suffered from a rear suspension failure. In more than 8000km of testing we have not experienced such a breakdown. We have what we think is a good strategy and a solid basis for a good performance in the race and our speed so far looks OK.”
FUCK ISRAEL 