Former Ferrari technical director Ross Brawn believes Kimi Raikkonen
still needs time to adjust to his new team before he shows his full
potential.
The Finn driver left the McLaren team at the end of last year after
five seasons, and replaced seven-time champion Michael Schumacher as
Felipe Massa’s teammate at the Italian squad.
Raikkonen’s speed has been somewhat overshadowed by Massa’s
impressive pace in winter testing and in qualifying in the first races
of the season, although the Finn is currently tied in the lead of the
championship.
Brawn reckons Raikkonen is yet to fully acclimatise to Ferrari, but
the Briton is predicting a fascinating battle between the pair in 2007.
"Felipe was very good at the end of last year and from what I understand he has progressed well over the winter," Brawn told Autosport magazine. "He is very strong opposition because he knows the tyres, he knows the car, he knows the team.
"Kimi is very quick, but he needs a bit more time to get to the same level as Felipe.
"When you get intelligent guys who work with the tyres, with the car
and the team you are not going to step right in and operate at quite
the same level. You will take a little time to come up to that.
"It’s a fascinating battle and I think we’ll see lots of ups and
downs in that battle before the end of the year. It’s a great start to
the season."
Brawn also praised McLaren’s Lewis Hamilton following the British
driver’s sensational start to life in Formula One, although the former
technical director admitted he was not particularly surprised by the
rookie driver’s showing after his stellar performances in other series.
"I wouldn’t say surprised," Brawn added. "We saw some of the stuff
he was doing in GP2. It was exceptional and nobody else was doing that,
and nobody had done that for a long time. You just didn’t know whether
that would translate to F1 and it seems to have done.
"There’s again ideas and theories about the swap from Michelins to
Bridgestones for (Fernando) Alonso and Kimi, and that maybe it’s taking
a little while to adjust to. Bahrain is a hard-braking circuit. It’s
where the differences between the Bridgestones and Michelins will have
been most prevalent.
"Whether Kimi and Fernando haven’t adjusted to those changes, it’s a
theory. We’ll see a lot of twists and turns in that battle. But for
Lewis it’s been a great performance. It’s going to be fascinating to
watch the rest of the year. Quite exceptional, really."
Its true that because of the tyre change Kimi and Alonso have faced a set back on their performances, so far into this season. It’ll be interesting to see which one comes through this struggle first, they both are leading the championship so its almost impossible to say which has performed better. Of course, Kimi has a lot more to offer yet!
Massa keeps Ferrari on top in Barcelona
The Ferrari team continued to show their strong form by topping the
times for the third consecutive day in testing at the Barcelona circuit.
While Kimi Raikkonen was quickest on the first two days, his
teammate Felipe Massa replaced him both behind the wheel of the F2007
and on top of the times after another good session for the Italian
squad.
Massa, who covered over 100 laps as Ferrari continued to work on new
aerodynamic components, was three tenths of a second quicker than Red
Bull’s Mark Webber, second quickest in the RB3.
Shape up, Kimi!
By Hendrik Verwoerd
Kimi Raikkonen is generally regarded as the fastest driver among the
current crop ā if not ever ā but the 2007 season is developing in such
a way that this alone will not be sufficient to win races and therefore
the title.
In the first three races the winner invariably came from one of
the two drivers on the front row of the grid. Raikkonen himself won
from pole position in Australia, Fernando Alonso in Malaysia (second on
the grid) and Felipe Massa in Bahrain (pole).
With all the cars these days on the same tyres, engines limited
to 19 000rpm and aerodynamics making it really difficult to pass
someone unless he makes a mistake or suffers a failure, the result is
seemingly already determined on Saturday afternoon.
The ability to set up a car so that the driver can qualify on
the front row is thus of cardinal importance. This ability is not the
work of a moment; it is a skill that only comes through many hours of
sifting data and conferring between a driver and his engineers.
Throughout his Formula 1 career, which began at Sauber in 2001,
Kimi has depended on his incredible natural speed to drive around any
problem. Presumably it has something to do with the fact that, when he
was picked up by Peter Sauber, he had completed only 24 car races
before making the leap into Formula 1 ā not a lot of time to learn the
skill of setting up a wings-and-slicks single-seater.
Kimi doesnāt spend a lot of time with his engineers. It is a
fact that often he is the first to leave the circuit after a dayās
work.
Great drivers during the high-tech era of Formula 1 like Alain
Prost, Ayrton Senna and Michael Schumacher often stayed with their
engineers late into the evening to identify the smallest possible
improvement in performance and handling. It was a crucial part of their
success.
Raikkonenās current main competitors ā his Ferrari team-mate Massa, and twice world champion Alonso and
Lewis Hamilton at McLaren ā are doing exactly that. The results speak for themselves.
Last week Sauber, these days a consultant for BMW, made the
point that Kimi will have to change his approach to the technical
aspects of being fast in a Formula 1 car, while three-times world
champion Nelson Piquet added unless Raikkonen didnāt soon begin to
qualify better, he would be beaten to the title by Massa.
To his credit it seems the Finn is beginning to realise this.
After the Bahrain race, the second in succession in which he started
third on the grid and finished in the same position, he admitted he and
the team would have to work harder to get him higher up on the grid.
āWorking harderā simply means spending more time behind closed
doors and less on social activities. Kimi will have to change his
outlook on life and his profession; as things stand at the moment he is
busy throwing away his best chance ever of clinching the title he
deserves so much.
The first evidence of such a turn-around, or the lack of it,
will come with the results of Qualifying at the Circuit de Catalunya in
little more than a week.
I have to agree with every single sentence this man has said! To be honest, we all love Kimi but there is always, always room for improvement from yourself and I’m pleased that Kimi may be realising this 
FUCK ISRAEL 