From Autosport.com
Q. What happened in qualifying today? And is there a relation
between what happened today and in the last few races – as you seem to
have a problem in the last 10 minutes?
Kimi Raikkonen:
The lap wasn’t probably what I wanted exactly, but I cannot change it
any more. It wasn’t very easy, but that is life. We are still in fourth
place. It is not exactly what I wanted but I think we have a good pace
for the race.
Q. Is there a reason for the problem in sector two, where you seem to have a problem?
KR: I was slow and that was it. I don’t need to start telling you what happened on the lap. We were not fast enough.
Q. You targeted an improvement to qualifying form as key to the
championship. Felipe is obviously on pole position, but do you feel you
have made a step forward or is there still much more to do?
KR: It wasn’t what we wanted today, so it wasn’t exactly an
improvement. That is nothing new – it hasn’t been an easy qualifying
for me this year. I am not surprised that it didn’t go exactly the way
we wanted. But of course I think we improved the situation but we are
still not where we want to be yet. We try to do better again next time.
It is not the end of the world, so we will see what we can do tomorrow
in the race and go from there.
Q. Can you give us an impression about how much fun it is to drive on this track? Do you like it?
KR: It is a nice circuit. They have done very well when they
prepared and made the circuit. For a street circuit it is a very nice
place to come and of course I hoped we would do a little bit better
today.
Q. Do you see an advantage in the race for Ferrari?
KR: I don’t know. We will see what we can do. I think we have
a good car so as long as we get everything going well we should be
okay. It depends a lot on the start what happens in the race, but we
try to win it for sure.
Q. The FIA has swapped the side of pole position, so you are on the other side now. How do you figure the start of the race?
KR: I think where we end up now it would have been better to
have it the other way around, but it is fairer for the guy who is on
pole to be on the cleaner side. It is not clear either side because we
seem to go between the two starting grids. We will see what we can do
at the start. There is a lot of space but there is quite a tight corner
at the end of the straight, so it will be interesting to see what
happens.
Q. What is the trickiest part of this circuit?
KR: There are many tricky places, and if you make a small
mistake you lose a lot of time as it is so slippery off line. If you go
a little bit wide then you lose a lot of time.
It will indeed be interesting to see what happens, all we can hope for is that Kimi has a clean race and is able to show his potential – because his potential is BIG in the races, and eventhough qualifying is holding him down he still manages to keep up there. He’s being quite modest I think, considering the fuel I assume he’s carrying. You can watch the qualifying videos here or just further below (and a cool onboard lap with Kimi from free practise 3).
FUCK ISRAEL 
Hi Saima! I couldn´t believe how everyone was feeling today at the forum, there´s not too much confidence in our Iceman! I thought he did a great job, he was very fast in Q1 and Q2, Q3 was good too, but he still got beaten by Felipe, that´s nothing new, it´s a fact that Felipe outqualifies him, but overall I think Kimi has improved! We´ll have to wait till tomorrow (fingers crossed for no rain!!!), but whatever happens if Kimi doesn´t win, I´m sure that he´ll be able to collect valuable points, but of course he WILL WIN!!!You have a wedding tomorrow right?(or am I confused? I think you mentioned a wedding…) Have fun!!! We´ll be waiting here for your insight into the race.Keep flying Kimi – Keep flying Evenstar!!!
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Hey Sol! *high fives lol* yeah, it’s always the same story on the forums. But that’s life. Some people are different, unfortunately even fans can’t see clearly that Kimi’s doing well. He doesn’t have to get pole or win to prove he’s the best to me. Which is why I’m never a pessimist lolI’m feeling really annoyed right now though. There is a wedding party today, you’re right. It’s about 3 hours drive away from here so I thought we’d be able to leave straight after the race. But now we can’t. We have to leave during it! I’m so pissed off..how can I miss this race? I’ve never missed races! Anyway, putting my selfishness aside and thanks, I do hope to have fun after missing this race (grrrr!), all I hope is that Kimi has a good race. And I hope I’ll be back here soon enough to do the usual Kimi cheerleading LOL
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Hi friends! I need to discuss few things here with all Raikko fans. I believe that after the french gp, Ferrari internally deployed Massa as their No.1 because we all saw that our Kimi can qualify UP the order if he is lightly fuelled. Even after his balance/setup problems he can atleast qualify 1st, 2nd or maybe 3rd and that is at least better than qualifying 6th or 5th. That’s absolute common sense. Rather than messing up setup related stuff, they can just try to fuel him maybe 3 laps lighter than Massa/Hamilton. He’ll at least be somewhere up the order ( better than 6th at least).
That way our Raikko can use HIS strength which is his race pace. He’ll not be stuck behind slower cars and thus he can use his speed advantage and get better results rather than this botched up job that probably his team are responsible for. Maybe internally for some reason they are supporting Massa. It may also be the case that Kimi is not that motivated and he may have( I am using ‘may’) given them go ahead to slot No.1 to Massa.
We all can see Kimi using his blistering race pace when he can. Obviously in today’s race at Valencia we witnessed that he was much faster than Heikki but couldn’t get past him. Today also he was 3 laps heavier than Massa even though he kept stating the whole weekend that qualifying up the order is very vital. I can’t simply understand why he was still fuelled 3 laps heavier. We all are familiar with Kimi’s recent balance issues but being lighter will surely help.
I want you guys to give ur valuable comments. Thanks and keep flying KIMI!
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Hey there Hasan! (Saima was at a wedding today, so her official report is gonna be delayed a bit.) I fully agree with what you said, I´ve been saying it for ages now, that Kimi should choose a lighter fuel strategy for qualifying, he would then make P1 or in the worst case P3(but no less than that), and then he could make a super fast first stint before pitting. What trully goes on at Ferrari behind closed doors is beyond me or anyone else; BUT I certainly don´t believe that Kimi could have said yes to Felipe being nr.1, because I feel a decision hasn´t been made about that, not yet at least.He knows the problem in qualy is the fuel (unless there´s soemthing else we don´t know), but maybe he doesn´t want to go lighter because he knows he has a stronger pace even if he starts heavily fuelled, but with a heavy car and slower drivers in front of you there´s not much to do.I honestly don´t know what to think anymore, today wasn´t just a matter of poor qualifying (he was P4 after all, no that bad), Ferrari again failed to provide a reliable car, that´s just unacceptable at this point, after last year and this one so far, they should be able to sort this reliability issues by now.We´ll have to wait and see how Spa goes, it´s usually all good and fun for Kimi there, so let´s keep our fingers crossed!One thing is for sure, we cannot give up on our Iceman, never, ever, ever, no matter how hard it is, we have to keep fighting alongside him.Keep flying Kimi – Keep flying Evenstar!!!
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I read the post race quotes on the formula 1 site and something worries meIn that quotes Kimi says: "I am now out of the running for the title. There are still six races to
go and sixty points up for grabs. We have seen that the situation
change really quickly, even if I realize things are now more
complicated." Could it be that Ferrari are now putting their money on Felipe after a disappointing race for Kimi? It really upset me when I red that, seems like he doesn’t want to back Felipe as he still believes it could change but he realizes that the team might ask to do so. I hope he has fun a Spa Francorchamps as I’m gonna be there. I do hope Ferrari still gives him the same support in Belgium as Felipe because well Kimi loves the track and it suits him well and if he doesn’t have a second tittle this year I hope at least he can have his fourth win at Spa Anyway I hope he doesn’t end the season with 17 wins and that Ferrari doesn’t write him off too soon because things change quickly and one rainy race and Massa probably spin. Although right now I’m a bit annoyed by Massa’s form I do realise he worked hard for it and made a lot of progress this year. We’ll just have to wait and see But I still believe he can pull it off – Greetz
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@Lena: You got it wrong! Kimi says: "Not much to say after a day like this. It was definitely not the
weekend I was hoping for but I do not believe that, despite this
negative result, I am now out of the running for the title"; he means that in spite of the bad race he doesn´t see himself out of the title fight. Just wanted to clear that up for you, because otherwise you may be thinking something which is not, Kimi is still there fighting!
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@sol
Ooh I’m sorry but so relieved I red it wrong. I was panicking. I
thought he would start backing up Massa. Okay I can sleep well now. Thank you for pointing my mistake 🙂
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Hi there Raikkos! I was going through the interview of Stefano Domenicali with autosport and he was asked if it was possible to give Kimi the kind of aggressive strategy that they gave to Massa. He also stressed the importance of running in clean air. Maybe that would knock some common sense in the brains of these Italians so that they give Kimi an aggressive strategy to allow him to qualify higher up the order as well. And as I mentioned Mr. Domenicali does realise the importance of running in clear air.
And definitely I was very impressed by the comments of Sol123 "we cannot give up on our Iceman, never, ever, ever, no matter how hard it is, we have to keep fighting alongside him."
Also I want to ask if Kimi suffered similar tyre heating issues at Mclaren. I didn’t follow F1 too much back then but I did follow 2005 season onwards and I think Kimi was a great qualifier. He used to take pole positions ahead of Michael and Fernando. Maybe there is something to do with the Ferrari car or the use of Bridgestone tyres.
And now looking forward to Spa which really gives me a good feeling. Our Kimi sould be very strong there that’s for sure and he beat Massa last year to pole in qualifying. Let’s hope he finds a good setup and because the track is pretty long, that might give Kimi the possiblity to heat up his tyres to optimum temperature.
Good luck Kimi and Keep flying Kimi!!!
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Hey Hasan! Glad you liked my comment, in moments like these we have to keep our spirits up(even if it´s hard), and we have to believe in our champion!I´m really not sure about the tyres back in 2005, it was the year that tyre changing was not allowed, but yes Kimi got pole many times, his car broke many times too LOL(if it hadn´t broken so many times he would have beaten Alonso to WDC!!!), and in 2006 he had the crappiest year ever, plus he was using the Michelins.I read somewhere that the qualifying strategy was something that Kimi and Chris Dyer specifically wanted to be that way; I don´t believe it, Dyer is a superb engineer and he must know why Kimi qualifies so poorly, so I´m sure he must have said something by now. Kimi can be a little stubborn sometimes, but I´m sure that if Chris advised him to go lighter in the qualy he would do so, and it´s not a matter of his engineer advising him, he sees the problem, it´s there.Aarhg, I don´t know anymore……it was pretty hot yesterday too, 40 degress on a new track, Kimi using his second race engine, but still it shouldn´t have broken, this is what I don´t get about Ferrari, two broken engines, one after the other, and they don´t try to do something, all they keep saying is "we´ll look into it to try to understand what happened", bollocks! They need to make a realiable engine and that´s it (I know it´s more complicated than that), but it´s like the fourth engine problem they´ve had so far this year, shouldn´t it be a sign that they´re doing something wrong? Hope a solution comes before it´s too late.Can´t wait to have Saima back!!!
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Hi there Raikkos! Yeah Sol123 you’re right that Dyer is a great intellect and he must have definitely discussed different qualifyign strategies with Kimi but you rightly said that Kimi maybe some what stubborn at times and that he has his own way to do things and he likes to have his car a little heavy but the thing is in Q2 top 10 were surprisingly only separated by a mere 0.575. I mean that’s only 5 tenths and what i want to stress is, that this year the field is all bunched up and the gaps have really shrinked so going a little heavy in qualifying means you lose few tenths and that gives chance to drivers like Kubica, Trulli, Kovalainen to jump Kimi.
Saima is back! I read her her official post and I have to admit, it was really great. What she wrote was spot on with deep analysis.
After a few analysis I think Kimi’s qualifying time in Hungary was better than Massa or shall I say a lot better than Massa’s. Firstly because Kimi went wide and did a mistake on his hot lap and secondly he was 4 laps heavier as we witnessed in race day. Massa pitted on lap 18 while Kimi pitted on lap 22. He was full 4 laps heavier and his lap was only slower by a mere 0.325 and we know that 1 lap equates to 0.150 so that should be 0.150 x 4 = 0.600, that is 6 tenths but it was only 3 tenths. Draw your own conclusions on who’s faster ( or who’s fastest ).
Although to be honest I think Kimi hand even more fuel on board, he pitted on lap 22 because Vettel had ruined his lap. Why I believe that is because Kimi pitted on lap 22 and so did Alonso and Kimi came out even closer to him that forces me to assume that he took a lesser fuel than Alonso or maybe equal amount of fuel but during the second round of pit stops, Alonso pitted on lap 50 while Raikkonen pitted on lap 51. And in that one lap Kimi set the track on fire and came out ahead of Alonso by quite a margin. Wow! How about that? Can you see what I see. It means not only Raikkonen’s race pace was stunning but his qualifying lap was also very quick.
I mean do you fans get what I am saying, even after that mistake in qualifying Kimi did a blistering time. May be the reason was the track temperature which was in access of 40 degrees on saturday and Kimi must have got his tyres at good temperature.
And after all that information it hurts me because Kimi has lots of speed but his heavily fuelled car costs him a few tenths in qualifying which allows some other drivers to jump Kimi and he has to face the same old crap again. That also puts a lot of gap between himself and Massa and that makes Massa look so good(well not to me though) and those F1 observers and pundits start praising Massa and the Italian press which I think doesn’t have brains start crowning Massa as ‘their’ man or should I say Ferrari’s man. Tha’ts ridiculous. Even the great Niki Lauda comes up with some real bullshit. Maybe he needs some common sense and study before giving out those non sensical comments in the press.
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Well spotted Hasan, I thought Kimi’s qualifying in Hungary and here in Valencia not as bad as people make out. Infact, it was really good.
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I, m writing from panama city. I m a kimi´s fan and i m very worried about what is happening with him. I Rembembered before when he drove for mclaren, he spent much time with them without a poor car and lost his younger time driving for them. Now he is driving for ferrari with a better car (looks like) the mclaren seems to be a bit better car. I think someting is happen with him he should be more focus on his job. He have a car to show how faster is and i dont know why he is not doing his best performance.
I hope good results…
See u soon…
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