I remember after the Turkish Grand Prix that most of us thought Kimi scoring a 3rd place after being beaten by Massa was bad, at least points were scored then! Yet that’s nowhere near the disappointment we’ve had yesterday. Let’s see what happened and the statistics, if any, we take away from the Monaco Grand Prix, information courtesy of Autosport.com and Michele Merlino.
*During the Monaco Grand Prix, the fastestlap was improved 61 times, from the second lap when Massa recorded
1:37.079 to the 74th lap, when finally Raikkonen set the mark at
1:16.689. This time was a full two seconds than what Lewis Hamilton managed on his fastest lap. The reason being Kimi performed much better in the drier conditions. In the wet conditions Kimi struggled to heat the tyres, and of course that meant he wasn’t on the pace for most of the race. Ferrari also had a problem with the wheel nut in preparing Kimi’s car before the race, and that effectively ruined any chance for a podium as he was given a drive through penatly.
Kimi finished the race in ninth
place and his sequence of races in the points stopped at 12 and lasted
from the 2007 Hungarian Grand Prix to the last race in Turkey. Before
Monaco, Raikkonen was the only driver that had set points in every
round of the 2008 Championship.
Raikkonen set his 28th fastest race lap, reaching the fourth
all-time spot and tying with Jim Clark. The record holder is Michael
Schumacher, with 76 fastest race laps.
For the second time this year, the leader at the end of the first
lap was not the winner of the race. Unluckily for him, the driver is
always Massa, who also led at the start in Malaysia, before being
passed by his teammate at his first pitstop and then eventually
spinning off the race. According to TurunSanomat, Felipe had a little aid from looking at Kimi’s telemetry data during the Monaco weekend and felt it helped improve his performance.
Felipe, then, is becoming a tougher teammate to beat this year, and Kimi needs to find a solution to his problems with tyre temperatures. BMW boss Mario Theissen explained the simlar troubles Nick Heidfeld is having against his younger and less experienced teammate Robert Kubia. He says their (Nick and Kimi) driving style is too smooth and this doesn’t generate enough
heat into the tyres. Drivers like Kubica and Hamilton who throw their cars
around and prefer a loose back end are fine with managing their tyres. However, Hamilton is much more abrasive with his tyres, which showed in Malaysia and Bahrain – races where he failed to reach the podium and score points. Kimi and his race engineer Chris Dyer therefore will be concentrating on how they can overcome this tyre issue and find a solution which won’t hamper strategy performance in races, like we saw in Bahrain, Turkey and Monaco.
As we saw last year, it took Kimi 6 races to take a victory and within that time he was in a similar situation he is in now. The positive is, he is much stronger in the championship points battle and his consistancy has improved, although it came to an unfortunate halt in Monaco. This time last year after 6 races, Kimi was 21 poins behind Lewis Hamilton in the championship. In 2008, he is a mere 3 points behind.
And if you’ve read my 2007 mid-season review on Kim’s performance, then you’ll find this year is similar and the season is indeed long and that’s the only advantage anyone in this situation can have – Kimi will fight back and show us once again why he is the reigning world champion. I’ve seen people highly critical of Kimi yesterday, some saying disgusting and appauling things demanding Kimi to be banned, thrown over a cliff, and even ‘go back to F3 which you should have done’ (you read about Kimi’s extraordinary entrance to F1 here and to the surprise of many, his talent exceeded expectations.) Most interesting though were the assumptions that ‘a world champion should not be making those kind of mistakes’. As far as I can recall, every world champion has made crucial mistakes (Fernando Alonso has, Michael Schumacher has) and there’s no such thing as a flawless champion. Being a champion isn’t about doing everything perfect, but about playing the game better than the rest.
It’s more difficult this year because McLaren have one driver reaping the rewards opposed to having both driver taking points off eachother (Lewis and Fernando last year) so Kimi has to work harder, quicker and at the same time keep his cool. I have no doubts that he will and we all saw how no one would have reckoned Kimi a title contender this time last year.
*If you’re interested in reading the full statistics of Kimi’s career,
you can read them all in the KRS Archive here.
Interview with Adrian Sutil
From Autosport.com
Q. Can you put into words your feeling on that? To be so close to such a great result..
Adrian Sutil:
I am just disappointed. It is hurting so much. We did a great race and
we made no mistakes. We did a perfect strategy, everything went well.
We did fastest laptimes during the race, and the performance was great
for this car. For Force India this was an absolute highlight over the
past few years.
So it just ended very, very sadly. Everybody was close to crying
because it is just such a bad situation. Kimi had problems and crashed
into my rear and destroyed my race. All the work we did in the race was
for nothing in the end.
Q. Did Kimi talk to you about what happened?
AS: He apologised, so he is a great sportsman. He is a very
good driver and I have to accept it. It was not done on purpose and it
can happen to everybody. I have to live with it and just go on to the
next race.
Q. Was it just a racing accident?
AS: Yes, it was just a racing accident. Absolutely. It was
not like he was braking too late and crashing into my car. He lost the
car, the conditions were very tricky so we cannot say he made a
mistake. He just lost the car.
Q. Did you realise that Kimi Raikkonen was closing in on you?
AS: On the braking, you are more concentrated to get the
corner. The braking was difficult for everybody – the tyres were cold
and the car felt quite oversteery on the braking. In the end, I saw
suddenly a red mirror and it was too late. He crashed into me as I had
no chance to go anywhere else.
Q. Do you think you could have kept Kimi behind you?
AS: Yes, I think so. Actually, my pace in the dry was quite
competitive and there was just a dry line. So you could not go
side-by-side. If you try to overtake, you go on the wet and you lose
the car. I think we would have brought it home for sure – there were
only seven minutes, five laps to go.
Again, as much as Kimi is sorry for what happened, it also was a very sorry sight for us. So I also apologise to Sutil, he drove a brilliant race, doing a much better job than his teammate Fisichella, but I’m sure it won’t be his last. I won’t apologise for Mike Gascoyne though, who seems to be blind about his own driver’s actions when they crash into the back of others quite often (Fisichella at Turkey for example.) Ferrari have apologised to Force India, for effectively crashing into their own engine which is a Ferrari. You can read Kimi’s comments on the accident below, or click here.
Sutil Hailed ‘Hero’ of Monaco Race
…And team boss Colin Kolles also refused to criticise Raikkonen for the crash – with
the Ferrari driver having lost control of his car on the first lap
after a safety car restart.
"I don’t have to blame Kimi. He did a mistake, it’s a race incident
and there’s nothing more to say. It’s unfortunate that it was Kimi, who
is a friend, and that it happened with him. But what can I say, that’s
life."
Q. Can you tell us what happened on the grid prior to the start with Kimi’s wheel?
Stefano Domenicali:
Yes, we had a problem with the wheel nut, because, as you know, with
three minutes to go, you have to have the wheels fitted on the car, but
really at the last second we had a call from a mechanic that there was
a problem there and basically we were late.
That’s the reason why we had the penalty. Unfortunately that spoiled
Kimi’s race because of course with that drive-through the race is
finished.
Q. Do you normally fit the wheels at the last moment or just here?
SD: The tyres were already fitted for two minutes, that’s why we need to understand why this has happened.
Q. Felipe said that the change of strategy was a problem. Do you think Felipe has the possibility to race to win?
SD: Hundred per cent. Hundred per cent because the
performance was very good, just look at the first laps even in bad
conditions. We take the gamble regarding strategy because we had more
rain predicted on the radar and that was the reason why we gave him
another set of intermediate tyres because we wanted to be ready for
another shower.
But unfortunately that didn’t happen, and with the Hamilton
situation, who was able to have this kiss with the guardrail, where it
should have been impossible to come back, but because there was this
big gap behind him, he was able to come back (in a good position).
So there were a lot of circumstances that really we could not
control. So we need to consider the points that were related to our
decisions or our situation and look at the things that were really
peculiar to what happened today in Monte Carlo.
Q. Felipe’s first stop, did you have to stop then for the fuel or was that a change to get out on different tyres?
SD: The first one was to change for the fuel.
Q. And what probability were they telling you that it was going to rain?
SD: A lot, otherwise we wouldn’t have done what we did.
Unfortunately, that was the situation, that was the reason why we took
a gamble.
Q. What happened when Kimi lost control out of the tunnel?
SD: We haven’t analysed the data. For sure it was more a
problem with a patch of wet or a problem with braking, we don’t know
yet. For sure, it was a shame because one of the things you want to
have is not to gain any points this way. This is the situation and we
had such a competitive car in Monaco that it was such a shame. We are
also sorry for our client, Force India. Crashing into our engine, it
was really not good.
Q. Do you feel after the performance in qualifying here and your
pace in the race, compared to 12 months ago, you’re actually quite
encouraged by how the car performed on a tighter track, which has kind
of been your Achilles heel over the past 12 months?
SD: I think so to be honest, because what we said, we wanted
to prepare more in a different way and as we saw on Saturday, this was
the real answer. In that respect, we want to be positive also for
Canada because we take the same kind of approach but we need to be
humble because the competition is always very strong.
As we always said, we mustn’t forget that we won four races out of
six, and that’s something important. As I’ve always said, the
championship will be very very long. In these conditions, you’re going
to lose some points, then the situation that happened with Lewis today
means he’s leading the championship, so it will be very, very long.
Q. Same question about Canada; Felipe said Ferrari is much closer to McLaren compared to 2007. Is there a chance for Ferrari?
SD: It’s easy to say but difficult to do it. For sure, in
terms of preparation, we are much more confident of the situation ad
hopefully it should be different from what we saw last year.
Q.Which errors from today do you deem unacceptable and that must not be repeated?
SD: Unacceptable error is a strong expression that I don’t
feel like using in public. My responsibility is to analyse with
everyone the things we can’t afford to do wrongly. So, following from
this principle, the matter of unacceptability is a matter that must be
faced between us, in a calm and serene way, and without crucifying
anyway, because I repeat, we’ve won four races out of six.
Q. Do McLaren have an advantage by edging their bets on just one driver instead of two?
SD: "I don’t know. It’s easy to say that today because
Kovalainen didn’t start. We’ll have to see. It’s always easy to analyze
things in retrospect. If you look at previous races, Kovalainen’s race
lap times and what he could do in those races, besides some problems,
show that he’s second to no one. But this is not my problem. From this
point of view we aren’t changing.
FUCK ISRAEL 