Kimi’s Column, Valencia GP Review: The Street Pain & Talk of Qualifying Problems

From KimiRaikkonen.com

Life would be much easier if you could always win. But sometimes it doesn’t seem to go your way – whatever you try.

That’s what happened to me in the last couple of races and it’s not so nice. But it’s not over yet. I’ll keep fighting to get the results I want to achieve. One third of the season is still left and it’s enough to fight back.

Obviously I would have never expected that all these street circuit races would so badly hurt our campaign to win the world championship again.

We had the first DNF in Melbourne, however we gained one point still. Then we hit that bump in Monaco and crashed into another car. In Montreal we had a good race pace but had to retire after the collision in the pit exit. This weekend we lost the engine in Valencia.

I went to the European Grand Prix with a good feeling. It’s always great to have a race in a new place. Friday practise was good, I had a good feeling in the car. But Saturday was a little bit cooler and we struggled again in qualifying. We should have been more aggressive.

Obviously there has been a lot of talk about my qualifying problems. But in Hungary I just went wide in my final lap in Q3. Without that we would have easily been third. Then after that we got fourth place in Valencia, and after that I already knew the race was going to be difficult.

At the start you would need almost a miracle to get to the top from fourth place on the grid or further behind. We started from the worse side. Heikki had better grip and passed us. After that it was me against him for fourth place.

When you get stuck behind somebody, it’s nothing but a struggle to try and attack towards better positions. The leader gains one second every lap – that’s how it’s been in the last few races for us.

We fought to get fourth place, but the only opportunity was, obviously, at the last pit stop. We went there one after the other, but I made a mistake. I left too early and one of our mechanics hurt himself. Of course, you hope something like that never happens. Luckily, Pietro is mainly okay. His toe was broken but it’s not taking too long to heal. It’s nothing serious and I hope that he’ll be back at the track with us very soon.

After the stop we dropped to sixth place on the grid, and at the end of the day it would have been better than nothing, but then the engine blew. Without any warning. Suddenly we came from a corner and felt something was wrong. Then the smoke came out.

We knew we had to take a risk for Valencia and we did not finish the race. It’s a shame, but it’s useless to grieve over that. The result will stay and it’s time to just look ahead. Now we have a test in Monza, and then comes Spa.

I love that circuit and, obviously, I would love to race there for the whole year long. Spa is the best of all the circuits and hopefully we can finally get the car working to the way I want it to work.

We go to Spa to win it again. If somebody has doubts concerning my motivation, let them doubt. One thing I can tell is, that right now I am more motivated than ever.

Wow! I’m glad you all thought my Valencia review was good, because Kimi’s take of it is even better! Just as I said we should keep believing and be happy that he’s still Kimi, he says he’ll keep fighting no matter how many times he’s being pulled down. It’s just a pity Kimi has had to explain his qualifying because of the ‘talk’ about it. Don’t worry Kimi, we know. And he sure told them! If you’ve got doubts about Kimi’s motivation, go ahead. We’re heading to Kimi’s back yard next so I’d keep quiet.

In the latest gossip, McLaren boys Ron Dennis and Martin Whitmarsh had a few things to say about Kimi this week. Ron, having been Kimi’s boss at McLaren for 5 years knows enough about the Finn to recognise his presence in the championships:

"Kimi is a fierce competitor, a highly-talented racing driver and I wouldn’t levy any criticism at him at all," said Dennis. "The bottom line is drivers have good and bad races, and I’m sure he will forget this one, but he is more than capable of winning. So I certainly wouldn’t discount him at this stage. With only six races to go, I wouldn’t want to make any predictions about him. That’s the worst thing we could do."

Martin, on the other hand, was asked about whether Massa’s the key player for Ferrari: "He’s certainly a contender," says Whitmarsh. "He has exceeded many people’s expectation in terms of his reliability and I think that for sure we know Kimi better and he is a formidable competitor and he will be scratching his head. This isn’t a highly technical circuit, you’ve got to be good on the brakes and I think Kimi will bounce back strong in Spa."

Kimi has won in Spa the past 3 times the race has been held (2004, 2005, 2007) and we all remember his joy from last year as he rarely displayed some strong emotion in wheel spinning his Ferrari towards the parc ferme. Kimi is a racing driver, racing to win. He wouldn’t have early mornings, do testing or race if he didn’t care about winning, the feeling of victory. I’m absolutely positive Kimi will be his rightful position again and that’s flying high. Keep Flying Kimi!

 http://www.viddler.com/simple/3babc857/

This video, brought to us by TaniaS, is from Italian tv taken during the Valencia GP weekend, and it’s a fun interview with Kimi. You can download it here. It’s a good time to see Kimi happy and smiling!

Domenicali: "Massa’s engine failed after 932 km, Raikkonen’s after 968 km. The malfunction will not happen again."

Q: Are you sure of that ?

Domenicali: "The piston rods have been the same for three years now.
Out of a hundred, two have have gone bust, with progressive
identification numbers. The malfunctions occured in an area where
there’s no stress. It’s a matter of dealing with the material. We can
no longer afford to loose out on important results due to reliability
problems. But at the same time it’s also true that McLaren had 35
points more than we did last year, whereas now we’re 16 points ahead."

Q: So what will Ferrari do to not throw away any more good results ?

Domenicali: "We have decided to toughen up the controls on all the
parts of the car. We have 40 people working in the departments of
quality control and metallurgy. What is going to start in two weeks
time in Belgium is a sprint-championship of 6 races in which we can no
longer give away any presents."

Q: You’re like a football manager, do you feel confidence or scepticism around you ?

Domenicali: "The results speak in favour of Ferrari. I notice the
confidence and I have confidence in all the 900 employees of the
Gestione Sportiva."

Q: Schumacher’s presence in recent races seemed like a distant
supervision on behalf of Di Montezemolo and/or Todt. Now there are
whispers that Schumi should no longer come to the races…

Domenicali: "I didn’t feel supervisioned by him. Schumacher helps
the engineering side of the team and he’s a support for the drivers,
Kimi included. Every single statement of his has been agreed upon by
me. As far as his plans are concerned, I don’t know anything."

Q: Let’s talk about the great form Massa is in at the moment…

Domenicali: "I consider that as a continuous evolution from the
Malaysian GP onwards. Massa does well, he’s strong, wants to learn, has
an eye for detail. And he will be even faster still, now he has
‘acquiered’ what he was lacking: a consistent race pace."

Q: Can he win the championship ?

Domenicali: "Certainly. We should give him a car that is always
competitive while he maintain keep the aggresive attitude he has now."

Q: Will he cope with the pressure ?

Domenicali: "He’s mature (enough) to do that and we help him with it."

Q: In compensation, Raikkonen isn’t doing so well…

Domenicali: "And yet he has collected many points. For me it isn’t
a problem. He will react, he will soon come back strong, he knows how
to get out of criticism and problems."

Q: When he was still at McLaren there were pictures of him in which
he didn’t exactly look like an athlete. Off track, what is the
Raikkonen like we don’t get to see ?

Domenicali: "His strong point is to discuss with us about
everything, but I have never forced him to do anything with regards to
his character. I don’t think that the way he prepares for a GP has
anything to do with certain situations. As far as the mental
preparation for the races is concerned, we keep that a secret inside
the team and he’s aware of that."

Q: What’s his problem ?

Domenicali: "He’s not happy with the way the cars steers into
corners. He would like to have it more aggresively. And this is having
an influence on him. It’s up to us to continue helping him out."

Q: Let’s come to the point, would Raikkonen be ready to help out Massa if he needed to ?

Domenicali: "If it’s necessary Kimi will help Felipe, we talked
about this at the beginning of the year. But first let’s see how things
evolve."

Q: But if Raikkonen continues to pose a problem how are you going to manage the drivers’ situation with regards to 2009 ?

Domenicali: "As far as his contract is concerned: it expires at the
end of next year. We’re not in a hurry to decide. At the moment it’s
the championship that counts."