News: Monaco, Todt on Kimi, Car Breaker Kimi?

The one that bothers me the most is this one, “Kimi pushes to hard” “he
doesn’t know how to drive and care for the car” bla bla bla! In short,
Raikkonen is a car destroyer, the worst is that by being repeated by
the media the fans are starting to believe it too, “Raikkonen’s
reputation in on the line” I heard the other day, what reputation was
exactly being referred by that caveman, I don’t know was that his bad
luck reputation or what.

Part one

But don’t take my word for it, here are the facts since Raikkonen’s
first race in F1, I have added some interpretation and it’s subject to
debate, so you can judge and add your opinion too. I have added
collision and crash, as reasons to analyze when a driver abandons a
race because it’s far fairer to say a driver’s ruined the car by
crashing or spinning than by just driving it, don’t you think, sure a
driver’s responsibility in a crash is questionable but no more than his
responsibility in gearbox problems, electrical problems etc.

Between 2001 and 2005 seasons 3000cc engines with 10 cylinders were
used, a few changes were made in the rules but there were no
limitations or penalties on the number of engines used until 2004, as
such the F1 dogma dictated that the perfect racing car should barely
cross the finish line before falling into pieces, which means that
specially the engine were designed on the edge of technology or
fragility if you see it differently.

2001 season, team mate Heidfeld, team Sauber

…………..Kimi…Team mate..Mclaren

Races……..17……..17……….34

Not finished..7……….6……….12

Kimi’s reason to abandon, 2 times transmission, spun, steering,
halfshaft, driveshaft and collision. He made 9 points (would have been
24 with current system)

This was Kimi’s maiden season and he didn’t finish just 1 more race
than his partner and 1 more than Macca’s average, by the way Mclaren’s
missed always on technical reasons not due to any racing incident,
possible exception being Mika’s stalling on the grid. Not bad for a
rookie in a really, really crappy car. I’ve added Mclaren failures to
show that reliability before Kimi wasn’t exactly great. In this season
our Boy drove a car with limited potential and reasonable reliability
for a small team. Now let’s see about first season with Mclaren.

2002 season, team mate Coulthard, team McLaren

……………Kimi…..Team mate

Races……..17………..17

Not finished.11…………4

Kimi’s reason to abandon, 5 time engine, wheel rim, 2 time exhaust
pipe, rear wing, collision, spun. He made 24 points (would have been 36
with current system)

This was Kimi’s first with Macca, it was also his worst, notice
that when he finished he made good points, that’s one of the causes of
his reputation. That year 2 way telemetry was introduced only to be
banned next year, I could argue that it was Macca’s engineers who
ruined his engine those 5 times by playing with the computer, but that
would be a joke, just as it’s a joke to say Raikkonen shouldn’t have
pushed that hard. Yes, it’s true that there’s a real difference with
Coulthard’s record but common, a good driver should make the most out
of his car, it means taking a fast curve in a flat out way if possible
and that implies pushing the engine harder.

I think Merc’s engine just wasn’t good enough, cause Kimi was
able to drive the MP-17 faster than Merc’s engine could take, remember
a fresh engine was used in every race and Merc just wasn’t able to make
it reliable enough to run 300 km when pushed just a bit harder than
expected. You could say that’s just my opinion but apparently Mclaren
thought the same because by 2003 the situation changed a lot.

Part two

2003 season, team mate Coulthard, team McLaren

……………Kimi…..Team mate

Races………16……….16

Not finished…3…………5

Kimi’s reason to abandon, collision, engine, accident. Hhe made 91
points, maybe David Coulthard was pushing the gearbox or the
electronics to hard. The only changes in the rules were the banning of
the 2 way telemetry, the points awarding system and parc ferme, but
they continued to use a new engine at the start of every race and Kimi
was just 2 points behind Schumi for the WDC.

2004 season, team mate Coulthard, team McLaren

……………Kimi……Team mate

Races……..18………..18

Not finished..8………….4

Kimi’s reason to abandon, 4 time engine, transmission, pneumatics,
accident and electrical. One engine for the whole weekend rule was
introduced and Merc wasn’t up to the standard, granted Coulthard
finished 4 more races, but he was often far behind Kimi, in fact he
made only 24 point to Kimi’s 45 and even so he managed to break the
engine too, I call this season a normal situation because there was a
good reason for those 4 times where Kimi wasn’t able to finish while
his team mate did.

2005 season, team mates Montoya and others, team McLaren (funny the odd numbered seasons seems to be better for Kimi)

……………Kimi…….Team mate

Races………18……….18 (USA not accounted for)

Not finished….2………..6

Kimi’s reason to abandon driveshaft and hydraulics. One engine for
two whole weekends rule was introduced but Merc wasn’t willing to look
like crappy engine builders again. It’s interesting that by this time
Kimi’s engine breaking reputation was so seeded in the media that Pedro
de la Rosa was once forced to defend him, he said that accounting for
every race, practice session, training session and qualifying session,
if you take the number of laps driven by Kimi, Wurz Montoya and him,
Kimi in fact had not statistically ruined more engines than the other
Macca drivers, I still have that piece of video you can see it here.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S1svvUHXbkk

Pedro is basically explaining what I have said. The Iceman had some
problems that did not prevent him to finish, but cost him valuable
points and added to his fame one example of this was Malaysia’s GP
where he finished the race but out of the points, at Europe GP he
Officially finished the race, although we know what happened. There
were other incidents costing him in terms of grid positions we can
discuss them later. Raikkonen again was second in WDC standings.
Despite his increased reputation Kimi made it to the finish line more
times than his corresponding team mate, so I ask you, was him or the
car, because if you blame the boy for that then his team mates were
better than him at ruining cars.

2006 season, team mate Montoya and others, team McLaren

……………Kimi…..Team mate

Races………18……….18

Not finished…6…………7

Kimi’s reason to abandon, 4 time accident, heat shield fire and
throttle, this time it was accident the most frequent reason that took
him out of a race, yet you don’t hear any “experts” saying Raikkonen is
an unsafe driver do you? Thank god for that.

Part three

If you made it to this point, thanks a lot; I know I’m abusing your patience but what can I say.

Now about that heat shield that was again mentioned after the last race
and as a preview of Monaco, I would like to point that, the shield was
introduced at Monaco last year, only Kimi used because Monty was in a
different engine cycle at the time, the shield failed as a result of
poor design while driving behind the safety car after a pit stop, the
safety car is just too slow to allow the necessary air and the heat was
raised due to the pit stop triggered by Webber’s over heating problems,
the shield design was rectified after that situation, Haug and Dennis
clearly explained what happened, but the vox populi in the media was
“Raikkonen damaged the car by running to close to Alonso, again being
careless” that is just a poor conclusion, nothing was wrong with the
shield until the pit stop/ safety car situation and one more thing,
telemetry and radio communication in F1 are there to prevent the
alleged situation, I mean the team should know about temp changes and
they should advice the driver, so it’s just ludicrous to say that Kimi
was happily driving behind Ferny and that was the reason for the fire.
The official Mclaren report can be read here.

http://www.mclaren.com/f1season/2006/monaco/index.php