ZitatSpanish GP: Kimi Raikkonen says fighting Fernando Alonso not worth it
Kimi Raikkonen said there was no point in fighting Fernando Alonso when the Ferrari star made his crucial pass to win the Spanish Grand Prix.
Three-stopping Raikkonen led four-stopper Alonso in their penultimate stints at Barcelona, when both had one pitstop left to make, but Alonso used his fresher tyres to overtake Raikkonen and pull well clear before the final stops.
When asked if he thought that victory had been possible, Lotus driver Raikkonen replied: "Maybe halfway through, when we were leading, but we were on old tyres and [he had] newer tyres.
"It is too easy to overtake, so no point to really fight again because you cannot hold him behind.
"I knew if I could somehow stay a bit closer, maybe I had some chance, even if I am already behind them with old tyres. But in the end, they were just too fast."
Raikkonen pointed to his poor opening lap, when he dropped a place to Alonso at Turn 3, as a moment that shaped his race.
"We didn't have a good start, but I don't think the end result was decided there.
"It wasn't the win, and we are only happy with the win, but [in terms of the championship, with Sebastian] Vettel we are close and Fernando has caught me, but we are still in the hunt and hopefully we can try and win a bit more."
Raikkonen is now just four points behind Vettel in the championship, and is looking forward to future battles as he aims to win his second world title.
"Sometimes you have bad days and make the most out of them and give yourself a chance to fight for wins," he said.
"If you can do that often you will have a good chance in the end to fight for the championship. Only five races done... we will see what happens and see where we are at the end."
Zitat von icemaidIs that why the Ferrari cars are so fast...something illegal?
I think Ferrari were incredibly smart to hire former Bridgestone engineer Hirohide Hamashima in an effort to gain an advantage in an era where tyres are playing such an important role in race pace. It's hard to know exactly how much of a step forward he brings to the car. But it is a move that other teams have not made. To go out and search for a "tyre" specialist from other manufacturer in order to best understand the rubber.
It's a move that is overlooked and very rarely talked about. But I think Ferrari are reaping a massive benefit from his expertise
I quite like the strategy aspect, I like a variety in strategies and in 2010 strategies where just the exact same for every race.
But, the onboards for this race just showed, the fastest guys on track looked as if they were cruising around, and it's not something you would want to see. Apart from lap 1, I didn't see a genuine overtake or a battle. In saying that, this track is shit tyre wise and is boring as it is, maybe the drivers where just bored to death and cruised.
As for the race, once I figured out the top 4, which was quite early on, I kind of lost interest and studying for my exam on Wednesday (which I still haven't studied for) seemed more appealing.
Well, my prediction for the win, went and won the race, should have put a bet on him. Alonso was aggressive at the start and pulled a nice move on Raikkonen and Hamilton. After passing Vettel, it was his to lose. I was surprised at the 4 stop strategy, as 3 stops was what we were told the majority would do. But Ferrari committed early and it paid off, well done.
Raikkonen made a 3 stop work to finish second, if he went either way on the strategy, I doubt the finishing position would have changed. Seems to lose ground in the first 2 laps, and takes a while disapatching slower cars. The car doesn't have the outight pace, once Pirelli sort out their tyre problems, I can see them slipping back. 4 podiums in 5 races though, edges him closer to Vettel.
Ah Felipe, on the radio saying "ees too diffico!!!" made me chuckle. What a start, and to finish 3rd from 9th was great result. A possible Ferrari 1-2 lost due to the penalty Massa recieved for blocking Webber in qualifying. Lucks not going his way at the moment, and Alonso is pulling away. First podium this season, at least that monkeys off his back, a win is overdue, and I think we all would like it to come soon.
Damage limitation for Vettel. The fight with Alonso was called off early on, was just racing himself really, cruising around. Still leads the championship, but the gaps been cut down, his lowest finish this season is still only 4th.
If you need a lesson on how to have bad starts, come to Mark Webber, and he'll reveal his secret. Was down to 11th in lap 1, was bailed out by Red Bull's strategy of making him the first one comitted to 4 stops. In saying that, his recovery was very good, ony finished 8s behind Vettel in 5th.
We expected Rosberg to slip back after pole position, but it was nowhere near as bad as Bahrain, and he managed 6th on a three stopper in a car that goes through tyres quicker than others. had a good first stint, and then it just slipped away, 6th was the best he could have achieved. I think he'll run well in Monaco if he gets pole and gets the undercut first.
Di Resta was close snatching 6th off of Rosberg. A little too conservative maybe, strong points for the team, and keeps Force India ahead of McLaren.
Seems as if Button got the tyre pressures sorted out for the race, says it's 'embarassing' where McLaren are, maybe he should stop criticising constantly and get the job done. 8th is not bad, probably had his heart in his mouth when Perez was 8 tenths behind him with several laps to go.
Perez was caught out by McLaren leaving him out too long for the first stint. Was wanting to give Button a love kiss this time round, but the team called it off. Improving, and showed that Bahrain wasn't a one-off.
Ricciardo's been running well all weekend, gets another point for the team, and pulls away from his team-mate, and the team now have a three point advantage over Sauber, and 8 over Williams. A replacement for Mark Webber?
Just thought I would say, good job by Guitterez, who finally put in a good performance and misses out on his first ever point by 0.3s, could have been different if he didn't get the penalty in qualifying.
Also, Van der Garde aswell, without the full updates compared to his team-mate, out-qualified both Marussia's and Pic, and was running well in the race.
A good race in terms for the championship, but an eye opener for F1 and Pirelli.
ZitatDrinking from the Bottle – 2013 Spanish Grand Prix, Sunday
Kimi Räikkönen took his fourth podium finish of the season with second place in the Spanish Grand Prix; moving him to within a tantalising four points of Championship Leader Sebastian Vettel.
Romain Grosjean’s race ended after just 8 laps following a suspension failure on the right rear of his car. The team falls to third in the Constructors’ Championship, six points away from Ferrari who attained a double podium finish today.
• Kimi started from P4 with used medium tyres, changing to used mediums on lap 10 and the same again on lap 26. He made a final stop for new hard tyres on lap 45. • Romain started from P6 on used medium tyres; his race ending with eight laps completed due to a broken suspension component. • Today was Kimi’s 22nd consecutive Grand Prix points finish; the Finn having completed every race since his Grand Prix return with Lotus F1 Team in 2012.
Kimi Räikkönen, P2, E21-03 “Unfortunately it’s second place again so it’s not time to celebrate too much. The car felt good and we did pretty much all we could today, but we didn’t have the pace to challenge Fernando [Alonso]. I drove to the maximum and it’s good for the championship that Sebastian finished behind us. It’s nice to be on the podium for me and the team; let’s see what we can do in Monaco.”
Romain Grosjean, DNF, E21-02 “I made a poor start but after that I was on the pace and we know we’re able to produce good race strategies, so there was potential for a strong result today. The car was feeling pretty good until we had an issue with the rear suspension which meant I had to return to the pits and retire from the race, which is a great shame. It’s always disappointing for everyone when something like this happens but there’s no-one to blame; it’s just a part of motor racing.”
Eric Boullier, Team Principal “Firstly, we need to investigate what happened to Romain’s car. I feel sorry for him and for the team. Equally however, I’m delighted for the team to achieve another second place with Kimi today. Once again he drove fantastically and we were able to give him a great car with a good strategy. We took points from Sebastian in the Drivers’ Championship, but we have lost out a bit in the Constructors’ Championship. It was a good job by the entire team today.”
Alan Permane, Trackside Operations Director “We’re very happy with a podium. Losing out to Fernando in the first corner was a blow, and being held up behind first Lewis [Hamilton] then Sebastian certainly hampered our progress, but even so I don’t think we quite had the pace to take the win today. Unfortunately for Romain, and through no fault of his own, a rear suspension failure curtailed his race very early on. The cause of this has yet to be determined and we’ve completed many, many kilometres with this suspension configuration, so it’s difficult to pinpoint what might have occurred. We’ll be sending the parts back to Enstone to have a good look at what went wrong and avoid any recurrence.”
Ricardo Penteado, Renault Sport F1 Team Support Leader “A very good result for the team to bring Kimi his third consecutive, and fourth podium finish in five races. Managing the tyres was again crucial to the result and is an area we work on very hard with the team, as delivering engine smoothness through the apex and exit of corners can really help the stability of the car; particularly in the heavy braking zones. It is a shame Romain could not go any further, but we have shown that we can be competitive on all types of track this season.”
ZitatKimi, we heard you say on the podium there you were disappointed you didn't win. You had a different strategy to Fernando, doing one stop less than the Ferrari today. Was there a point at which you thought you might have an opportunity to challenge Fernando for the win today?
KR: Maybe half way through. Obviously, we were leading but when we were on old tyres and he had newer tyres, it's too easy to overtake. There's no point to really fight against [him] because you cannot hold him behind. I knew if I could somehow stay a bit more closer, even with old tyres, maybe I have some chance, even if I'm already behind and will be with old tyres in the end but you never know. But they were just too fast. He had a good start around the outside of me. I don't think the end result really was decided there but we just did a different way of doing the race. It wasn't a winning way today but... We're never happy if we're not winning. We're only here to try to win. But we kind of caught up with Vettel few points and obviously Fernando caught me up [by] some points but we're still in the hunt and we'll keep ourselves there and hopefully in the future just try to win a bit more.
Consistency is the key though, isn't it? It's the fourth time in five races you've stood on the podium, including that win in Australia and as you say you've got it down to just five points to Vettel. How do you feel about your championship situation and what comes from here?
KR: Obviously it's better than before the race now. It will not be easy. We cannot fight against... it's the same for everybody. Everybody wants to win it, but sometimes you have a bad day. You try to minimise those and make the most out of them and give yourself a chance to be up there and fight for wins. I think if you can do that often it will give a good chance in the end to fight for the championship. It's only a five race-old season, so there's an awful lot to be raced. We'll see what happens. We'll try to do well and see where we are in the end.
Q: (Pierre Van Vliet - F1i.com) Kimi, in the early part of the race when you had your first pitstop, you came back with new soft tyres and you spent... you lost a few laps behind Vettel. Without that time lost do you think you could have been in front of Fernando on the last stint?
KR: It wasn't a new, it was used from qualifying. So, I mean obviously I have to overtake and I took maybe a few laps more than I expected but I got past him and I really could pull away but in the end I really don't think those were the decisions that were the deciding story of the race. I think we had the speed but we should have done it different. Maybe more pitstops, then you can push all the time - but I think this was our best way of doing the race. That's what we planned and that's what we did and I think we deserved to be second and not really winning today. It's OK for the team, the guys did a good job and we go for the next race to try to do better and get the best out of it.
Q: (Leonid Novozhilov - F1Life) Kimi, what do you think about the pit stop strategy in Monaco?
KR: I have no idea. I know what we did here and yesterday. There's a few weeks to go. We will see what happens, what tyres they bring and how everything plans out. I think it's usually quite straightforward there. Usually, if you're not in the front, you start behind somebody else and it's really difficult to overtake. We will see.
Q: (Heikki Kulta - Turun Sanomat) Kimi, you have three successive second places and now you've managed to catch up Sebastian by six points; was this the most rewarding of these three races, and how do you see your chances to do better in Monaco?
KR: First of all, Monaco is a different place compared to this, so it's a bit hard to say. Last year I wasn't very good there. For sure, it should be a bit better but I've had some good races there - it's a dangerous thing to say - but as Fernando said, I think Mercedes will unfortunately be pretty quick there and after that it's difficult to overtake. The only difference that they have made against most of us is in the last sector where it's tight so you can really expect, from what they did last year and what they did here, that they should be pretty fast there. We will see what happens there, but gaining the points on Sebastian was nice. If he would have lost more points and still be second it would have been even more annoying, but OK, you also want to win but we cannot still put ourselves in a better position for the championship so at least something good came out of it.
Q: (Jussi Jakala - YLE) Kimi, all top drivers are kind of supermen; did you have time to enjoy the battle that you had with Sebastian?
KR: Yeah, it didn't last very long. It took a few laps. I maybe had a chance earlier but I didn't think that I would take him at the end of the straight but actually they were very fast at the start of the straight so I couldn't catch him there, so it took a bit longer than I expected but then it was quite nice, fair but quite tough fight, but it worked out OK.
i still feel theres something missing. not with Kimi...with the team.... " title="dunno" />
i get the feeling tyres are too important. and its the strong point of lotus. what if the tyres are changed as it is whispered? will lotus loose their strong point?
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Sun May 12, 2013 4:16 pm
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