From ITV-F1.com
Okay, Kimi has the babyface look sometimes too…
but inside the car, he remains as cool and determined as ever.
Felipe Massa confounded expectations by shading Ferrari’s superstar signing Kimi Raikkonen for most of the first half of the year. But, as Mark Hughes explains, Raikkonen eventually lived up to his reputation and asserted himself as the stronger driver.
Massa was generally faster in the first half of the season, Raikkonen in the second. Early in the season Felipe had the advantage as the incumbent driver with the knowledge of the team and the tyres (the 2007 Bridgestones were based on those of 2004-05 with which Massa was familiar).
These tyres did not give the front-end response Raikkonen was used to after years on Michelins, nor was he familiar enough with the Ferrari systems to easily adapt the car around the tyres.
Despite this, Raikkonen was devastating at the first race – though with the proviso that Massa’s qualifying problem meant the Brazilian wasn’t in a position to provide perspective.
But the characteristics of Albert Park disguised Raikkonen’s set-up problem, ironically giving a preview of how good he would be once he’d adapted later in the year.
He made a breakthrough in testing for Spain, round four, but this was stymied by the new tougher floor flexibility test, meaning the set-up had to be reconfigured for race weekend.
Practice at Monaco two weeks later was the first time, with both running untroubled, that Raikkonen appeared to have a significant pace advantage, but he then blew it with his Q2 crash, ironically as a result of now having the front-end response he’d been missing.
In Canada and USA he qualified marginally faster, weight-corrected, but circumstances worked against him.
The breakthrough had been made but was a long time in translation: This finally came in France where he beat Massa fair and square.
Thereafter only in Turkey did Massa have the upper hand and Raikkonen’s drives at Spa, Japan and China were superb.
In the treacherous conditions of Fuji his performance completely eclipsed Massa’s.
Conclusion: He made harder work of it than expected, but by the season’s end Raikkonen was the clear team number one.
(You can read ITV’s Ferrari season review here)
Interview with Nicholas Tombazis, Ferrari’s Chief Designer
Translated From AtlasF1 Forums
Q: Why did Raikkonen need so long to adjust to the team ?
Tombazis: ”The transition from Michelin to Bridgestone tyres hasn’t
been instantaneous. It was the same for Alonso. Then time was needed
for him to get used to the people, the atmosphere. But from the
Indianapolis GP onwards, he’s been very strong. Kimi is a very fast
driver but also a humble, serious guy.”
Q: Let’s clear up a some doubt, is he a good testdriver ?
Tombazis: ”He talks little but he says signigicant things. In the team we consider him skilled, straight to the point.”
Q: How will the new car change to its predecessor ?
Tombazis: ”The car has been changed in an expansive way, but at the
end, it’s an evolution of the F2007. This year we’ve been very strong
on tracks with fast corners and a bit less strong on tracks with slow
corners. We’ve analyzed the weak points and we’ve taken care of them.
But if you were to see both cars for 10 seconds in a flash, you will
struggle to see the differences straight away.”
Q: At the end of 2002, you teamed up with the rival, McLaren…
Tombazis: ”And that was a mistake. I came from a year in which
everything was easy. As a family, we thought that we would be better
off in England. We needed motivation. Then we changed ideas, we missed
Italy and Ferrari also. But now I don’t find it right to say that the
2005 McLaren was so good because of my contribution, the team was
already making progress (anyway). And if certain people had wanted, I
could have contributed a lot. What I think about Newey? I prefer not to
respond.”
Q: You’ve taken experience from Ferrari to McLaren and vice versa.
There’s a lot of talk about the spy story: where do you think taking
experience with you ends and espionage in Formula 1 starts ?
Tombazis: ”When a designer is hired, he cannot simply erase everyting
he’s done and it’s inevitable his brains are full of ideas that have
come up elsewhere. But there’s a great difference between this and
taking documents to another team. This fact in itself is unacceptable.”
Q: You’ve known both well, are you surprised by Stepney’s and Coughlan’s behaviour on a personal level ?
Tombazis: ”Yes, surprised and dissapointed.”
FUCK ISRAEL 