(Please click on the images for a bigger size to read) Preview: first GP for Ferrari:
Review:
< Spot the Difference: When I saw Kimi hold up his Ferrari trophy for the first time, it reminded me instantly of his
first
podium at Australia 2002. I think its the ‘shy’ smile. Anyway, what do you think about Kimi’s win? Pretty straight forward? Blitzed the field ‘Kimi style’? Leave a comment below this blog. Kimi was able to have a Massa-free weekend in Australia, we still don’t know what Massa could have been capable of. But to be honest, Kimi’s race starts are always brilliant, he does it so well to ensure he gets a long run out from the first corner, he took it in deep from the left despite t
he BMW and McLaren braking in right next to him. I personally think Massa has A LOT of RACING to learn yet if he is to challenge Kimi in the races. It will come with experience, so maybe the weekend for Massa wasn’t disastrous at all, it was valuable. Kimi has had the experience of battling through innumerable tough circumstances when he was at McLaren, so he is stronger than ever, to Ferrari’s advantage too. They may claim he is not their Number One yet, but he clearly is the better of the two.
>Analysis: movable floor the new buzzword
>Raikkonen happier at Ferrari – Todt
>Montezemolo delighted with Ferrari showing
>Lauda hopes Raikkonen now has discipline
>Australia Sunday quotes: Ferrari
Random quotes:
Kimi Raikkonen – "A fantastic victory! It is great to be winning again with my new team whom I want to thank for giving me a great car. The race was not as easy as it might have looked from the outside…"
Stirling Moss – "Quite frankly, Kimi Raikkonen is the fastest driver in the world, so you take a car as good as the Ferrari is, there is a gap, and I don’t know how you close it."
Jean Todt – "I was very happy to get two telephone calls, the first from Michael (Schumacher) as I was going up to the podium, which I handed to Kimi and the other from Luca di Montezemolo (Ferrari president) who was jumping for joy as if this was our first win in a decade. And indeed that is the feeling for us all!”
On Sunday Kimi Raikkonen brought the total number of victories in Formula 1 for Scuderia Ferrari at 193 in 742 Formula One races. It was the Finn’s tenth victory in F1.
Its funny the amount of doubt and criticisms Kimi faced pre-season. I wouldn’t call it bashing, but most of it seemed like it. Now he must feel sooooooo good to get them off his back eh?
Actually, maybe not. He always knew he was good 
The start of the race was predicted to be electric, and what a performance from Hamilton in retaliation against the BMWs who practically forced their ways towards the front. Kubica pushed Lewis out to the right, Lewis swung back to the left and ran along the outside of Heidfeld, Kubica AND Alonso! Excellent start and his first ever podium in his F1 debut on a new track to him, what an achievement, McLaren have a good points standing with Alonso in 2nd too. Massa started the race from the back of grid having changed his engine for the race (penalty), he finished in 5th place which was a good effort as he was stuck behind both Hondas for the most part of the early stage. Not a single incident or crash ensued after the first lap, and Kimi kept flying non-stop all the way through, later taking the fastest lap of the race with a 1.25.235. However, apart from the consistant run offs from Kovalainen, Speed and Albers, Coulthard and Wurz suffered the only collision as he tried to overtake the Williams driver but was cut in short and went flying over Wurz’s car! Not injured but they retired from the race. Kubica continued doing a great job keeping in 4th but retired with a gearbox failure but Heidfeld remained to finish in his place. Toyota seemed revitalised after poor practise and qualifying pace, Schumacher and Trulli finished in 8th and 9th. Sato and Davidson ran out of Super Power and finished in 12th and 16th, still, not bad as they were within Honda’s range of Barrichello and Button in 11th and 15th place. Red Bull ran out of wings as DC crashed but also Speed ran off onto gravel and grass and retired. The last car was the poor Orange which rolled to the finish line.
McLaren are there in the scene, its a matter of time till Lewis and Alonso get a few more tenths out then this will really get exciting. Kimi managed to get 2rd place in 2006 in the MP4/21, and from a whole year since there was no win. Its clear McLaren have a lot of work to do therefore, one year forward and its the same result despite the world champion onboard, however this time, McLaren actually have both drivers to support the team, Kimi was more or less alone last year. Kimi blitzed the majority of the field today, even lapping his teammate Massa. Damn, thats gotta hurt for Felipe. But hopefully Felipe feels proud of his achievment, as it was a tough job, and likewise for Kimi, to take in his stride so much expectation externally, and also internally, he knows he can be champion and this is the beginning.
Videos:
Parc Ferme
Podium!
Press conference quotes:
"The weekend has been very good and the race maybe looked easier than it was but my radio broke just before the start of the race so it wasn’t ideal, but we had a clear plan about what we wanted to do," Raikkonen revealed.
"It was a good race, I didn’t push too hard and just tried to pace myself," he added. "We were quite quick at the start and I didn’t have to push as hard as I could have and then it was just a case of bringing it home. I’ve had good races here before but never been able to win and it’s always nice to win on your first race with a team which I haven’t done before. I’ve really enjoyed it and it’s the perfect start to the season."
Keep Flying Kimi.
Saturday, Qualifying:
Wow! This has been the first time since a very long time that I’ve felt distorted in support of watching F1. With the increase of competitiveness showing from the first qualifying session of the season, it shows good signs of things to come! The development of teams like BMW and Super Aguri, the regeneration of the McLaren, rookies showing promising talent, but most importantly to me, Kimi’s success continues gracefully.
First things first, that Ferrari had to be just right for Kimi, so he can finally start a season within a stronghold. He showed Massa’s testing and practise pace wasn’t too hard to keep up with at all, however we were left hanging when Massa had a problem and got caught out in Q2 so who really would have gone fastest, we aren’t sure, but Kimi would have in my opinion. We had on-track bluffs such as Trulli being driven from a trolley (rear jack was left on from the pits lol), and Ralf Schumacher’s gear box failing on tricky blind fast corners, and the weight of the world on poor Honda’s shoulders since their b-team Super Aguri outpaced them easily (perhaps an ironical element in that?). Barrichello looks more sad than ever having lots of work to do in 17th and Button stressed in 14th. The Super Aguri Bros managed to just pip into 10th and 11th, with Anthony Davidson proving a great F1 driver finally and Sato keeping the team in check behind.
McLaren’s Lewis Hamilton seemed to be born for F1, undertaking the limelight pressure as well as realising his own capabilities, he stood a clear challenge for Alonso by staying fastest for quite a while and kept the Ferrari’s in check all the way through. He qualified P4 in the end. BMW showed that they’re in F1 to be quick paced cars, especially since Montoya grabbed 7 consecutive poles with them in 2003, because Heidfeld and Kubica qualified 3rd and 5th, being regular pace setters all weekend so far. Most amazing thing is that they managed to jump ahead of current world champions Renault, with who Fisichella qualified 6th and Kovalainen 13th. For the Aussies, Webber delighted them going 7th with the Reb Bull which hasn’t really sparkled Newey’s profession off just yet, because poor old Coulthard got caught out in Q3 for 19th place. Williams seemed as if they just joined the show in 12th and 15th, and the party boys at Torro Rosso, kept the usual Luizzi and Speed in 20th and 18th, and the Oranges were packed the whole lot in 21st and 22nd.
But wait, all these numbers, who was 1st? Number ONE? T’was Kimi Raikkonen of course! Forget the tyres, the car, "I just drive" indeed, he drove a quick, track-glued and well balanced car to 1st on the grid, nearly 4 tenths ahead of Alonso. Here we have it, unfinished business up front, and this time its Kimi who starts the show in style. Great job, I’m very happy for you Kimi. 13th career pole position. And despite feeling odd at seeing you in the Red, your hand-wave brought back memories of ‘Kimi Happy’ and that will do for me!
Kimi’s Post-Qualifying FIA Press conference quotes:
"I think we have a good package, we are confident for the race and as long as everything works well and we don’t have any problems we should be okay, but so many things can happen," said Raikkonen. "We do the best we can and hopefully we can win, but for sure the others will try and beat us. It will be close but we will do the best we can." He added: "It has been good. Yesterday was not perfect, the weather was a big issue, but today we found a good set-up for the car. Unfortunately we didn’t have as good a result as we wanted as a team, as Felipe had some problems, but hopefully we can sort them out."
Official KR webiste quotes:
KR: "A great qualifying, but a shame for Felipe who was not able to get the sort of result he should have done. I think our car is more competitive in race trim rather than over a single lap. Usually here the race can be full of incidents so its impossible to know what could happen. If all goes the way it should then we have a good chance, but it will be important to pick up as many points as possible. Tonight? I will sleep well, as usual. Am I worried about Felipe’s gear box problem? You can never be a hundred percent sure, but I am certain the team will do everything it can to make sure I have a car in the best possible shape"
Keep Flying Kimi!!!
Practise Sessions:
Kimi and Massa were the last ones to exit the pitlane for first practise, while the track was still quite damp from the rain earlier. Everything went well. Alonso went fastest just before the end of the session, with Massa in second. Kimi was on a very quick lap going fastest in sector 1 and 2 but had to abort his lap as he ran out of time. He stayed in 19th. The Ferrari boys led a 1-2 in the last practise session, Massa going quickest with Kimi just 0.3 secs behind. It started to rain again during the session, so quite a few cars were spinning off and had problems keeping on track, including Barrichello who slipped his car into a barrier after his rear wheels came onto grass.
(Autosport.com) Friday Press Conference with Kimi:
Q. Kimi, that last lap, which you didn’t complete, looked like it was going to be your quickest. A good day? Kimi Raikkonen: Yeah, but I think it was one of those days. I think it’s always been raining here for the last three years and difficult weather so not exactly what we wanted. But I think we’ve done what we wanted to do, we tried different tyres and we learned something even though there was traffic but I’m pretty happy.
Q. Do you feel the car is suited to the circuit? KR: Yeah, of course there’s always things we can improve but overall I think it’s pretty good. I think the biggest thing is to find the balance and the speed over one lap and if we find that, the race should be OK.
Q. And you’ve found that? KR: Probably, we will do the best we can tomorrow but I think we just need to fine-tune it a bit and it should be OK.
Q. An interesting team with Felipe; how do you see your relationship with your teammate and closest rival? KR: I think we have a very good relationship. The team is working well. I think we have a good relationship and there’s a good, positive feeling in the team. Everything seems to be going in a good way so I think it’s a perfect way to start the season, so we shall see how it goes.
Q. And a different atmosphere within the team, to what you’ve been used to? KR: Yeah, a little bit. It’s good, everything’s good. I really enjoy it.
Q. Kimi, any changes in your life?
KR: No. <(Hahaha, thats my boy!)
(Kimi Raikkonen Space)
FUCK ISRAEL 
