Kimi’s Column: Post British GP/ German Preview

Reacting Without Panic

We didn’t win the British GP, but at least as far as I’m concerned, I
didn’t loose too much ground. It was a very difficult race. We didn’t
expect the rain to become more intense immediately after our pit stop:
but that’s what happened and we found ourselves in one of the worst
possible situation for nine endless laps. I think I’ve never driven a
Formula One race under such difficult conditions. It was almost
impossible to stay on the track with used tyres and so much water.
Although going slow I was almost everywhere on aquaplaning! I could
just hope not to bump into someone or something. But as usual one
should never gives up and that’s what me and the Team did. Once we had
changed the tyres the situation was under control and I could make up
ground. It was a great feeling to get back and into the points so fast.
Then there was the battle with Alonso for fourth position. It was a
very important point to compete for, but I didn’t want to risk too
much. In the end I managed to overtake him and get that place.

Considering
everything that happened, it could have gone worse. We had the pace to
win and there’s no doubt about it, but we took a wrong decision. We
spoke about it via radio with the pitwall and we thought that, based on
the forecast, the rain should not have lasted much longer than a couple
of minutes and that’s why we decided to keep the same set of tyres.

But the forecast was wrong and I had to slow down a lot: This shower seemed to last forever.

Having
said that, the whole weekend was not very easy. We came to Silverstone
with a good feeling after the tests, but for some reason or the other,
the car didn’t go as well on Friday. It went better on Saturday, but
the wind made everything much more difficult during Q3: the third spot
on the grid was not too bad.

I had a good start and tried to
find a gap to overtake Heikki and Webber. But suddenly Mark came to the
left and I had to slow down, because I had nowhere to go. Hamilton had
a good start and I lost a position to him. When we came close to the
pit stop I had the highest pace over the weekend and it seemed as if
everything went into the right direction. Unfortunately the black
clouds came back and everything changed again. The five points and the
fact that I’m leading the standings with Felipe and Lewis give me
satisfaction nevertheless. If I’m in such a position after four races,
where everything happened, my confidence can only be strengthened.

Now
we are looking ahead to the next race and react without panic. We know
that we have a winning car: we just need a weekend without big
problems. As of today we are at Hockenheim for two days of testing,
with Felipe, who’ll be on the track on Thursday. It’s my first race
with Ferrari on this track, so it’s a new experience for me. I’d say
that we’ll be competitive, because the F2008 has demonstrated to be
competitive wherever we are: so we can fight back!

Nothing more to add really! Only that I hope Kimi has a good result if not a win in Hockenheim, being his first visit to the track with Ferrari. His previous races in Hockenheim have been riddled with bad luck.

Two of Kimi’s 31 fastest laps are from Hockenheim. In 2005 he was leading the race and was quite a distance ahead of his closest rival, Fernando Alonso in the Renault, and Kimi was clearly going to win, before his McLaren engine blew up. Earlier in 2004 he was also on the chase in 2nd place with Schumacher’s Ferrari in front, but his McLaren rear wing flew off throwing Kimi at full speed into the barrier ahead of turn 1. In 2006, Kimi was on pole with McLaren but finished the
race 3rd, which was not bad considering the MP4/21 couldn’t win a
single race that year. Let’s just hope Ferrari can give him the goods this weekend because there’s no doubt Kimi’s going to fight hard to defend his title this year.

And incase you’re still wondering on the Kimi/photographer incident, Ferrari have downplayed the incident as ‘an unfortunate circumstance’:

The team explained the world champion’s actions on Sunday as
‘understandable’, after the Finn shoved Cahier because he felt the
photographer was being ‘too intrusive’.

"The photographer’s
behaviour was too intrusive as he put his feet on Kimi’s stuff despite
Kimi’s physio warning," Ferrari spokesman Luca Colajanni told autosport.com. "There is video evidence and witnesses which can confirm it.

"Kimi’s
reaction was understandable, considering how important the minutes
before the start of a race are for a driver. He did not push Cahier too
hard: the photographer fell down because he was in an unbalanced
position.

"We believe it was an unfortunate circumstance."

British
photographer Darren Heath witnessed the incident and explained on his
website’s blog that Cahier had crossed into Raikkonen’s personal space.

"He’d
got too close and Kimi had taken action, firmly shoving the press man
away," said Heath. "A tense few seconds ensued as the snapper thought
to retaliate, the wound-up Finn turning away and defusing the
situation."