quoteRäikkönen tells directly what went wrong at Ferrari - "shit car", wrong engineer, no problems with motivation
Turun Sanomat 27.11.2018
Heikki Kulta
Räikkönen was not available for the media gang during Sauber's testing day, but the 39 yrs old Finnish war horse gave an exclusive interview to Turun Sanomat beforehand.
We went through Räikkönen's Ferrari-seasons:
– Of course the WDC tops all those years.
– Still it wasn't any glorious season. I never got a good feeling when testing the car. It took quite a long time before we got everything in place. It was a good car for the rest of the season.
Then it was season 2008.
– The very beginning of the season went quite well, we took a lead in the race. It went downhill after Turkey GP. That's when the claims about my motivation problems - which were false - started.
– I don't know what it was, but I just couldn't get the car to work after that. Something changed and I couldn't get anywhere. At times I could, at times I couldn't. Everything was not like it should have been.
Season 2009:
- That season we had a totally shit car.
Season 2014:
– The car was even worse than it was five years ago. That was my worst season and the engineer was not a proper one.
Season 2015:
Sebastian Vettel replaced Fernando Alonso. Dave Greenwood was race engineer.
– Greenwood was like Mark Slade's brother. They have been my two best race engineers. The relationship with Vettel has been good. We even got the car better little by little and it started to go faster again.
Season 2015:
- My qualis went well. We were heading in a better direction.
Räikkönen had to protect his team mate's leading position.
quoteRäikkönen tells directly what went wrong at Ferrari - "shit car", wrong engineer, no problems with motivation
Turun Sanomat 27.11.2018
Heikki Kulta
Räikkönen was not available for the media gang during Sauber's testing day, but the 39 yrs old Finnish war horse gave an exclusive interview to Turun Sanomat beforehand.
We went through Räikkönen's Ferrari-seasons:
– Of course the WDC tops all those years.
– Still it wasn't any glorious season. I never got a good feeling when testing the car. It took quite a long time before we got everything in place. It was a good car for the rest of the season.
Then it was season 2008.
– The very beginning of the season went quite well, we took a lead in the race. It went downhill after Turkey GP. That's when the claims about my motivation problems - which were false - started.
– I don't know what it was, but I just couldn't get the car to work after that. Something changed and I couldn't get anywhere. At times I could, at times I couldn't. Everything was not like it should have been.
Season 2009:
- That season we had a totally shit car.
Season 2014:
– The car was even worse than it was five years ago. That was my worst season and the engineer was not a proper one.
Season 2015:
Sebastian Vettel replaced Fernando Alonso. Dave Greenwood was race engineer.
– Greenwood was like Mark Slade's brother. They have been my two best race engineers. The relationship with Vettel has been good. We even got the car better little by little and it started to go faster again.
Season 2015:
- My qualis went well. We were heading in a better direction.
Räikkönen had to protect his team mate's leading position.
However, how about 2016-2018 Season? A bit confused on the part of Kimi-Vettel period is missing.
Hi mclarenplayer
Sorry for leaving out the other seasons from the article. Thanks for asking xx
quoteThen what about season 2016 – what do you remember about that?
- My qualis were pretty good. I was more often ahead of Vettel and won our mutual quali-battle. At that time we were getting in a better direction.
In 2017 Räikkönen got his first pole position in ten years, when he won Vettel in Monaco GP qualification.
– The pole position was close a few times earlier too.
Räikkönen had to protect Vettel's leading position both in Monaco GP and in Hungary GP, because Vettel had car problems.
This season (2018) Räikkönen got both Monza GP's pole position and victory in Austin GP.
– The retirements during the first part of the season hurt badly the championship battle. All four retirements were caused by different reasons and I would have been on the podium each time. We did our best and this was the result. A third position is better than nothing.
Quote: jpp47 wrote in post #30The Swiss papers were very positive with Kimi already bringing point to the Sauber Alfa team. But many also did not understand why Ferrari did not keep Kimi one or two years more. He did a very good job with Sebastian and still could have. But on the other hand Swiss papers expect him to dos same kind of job with Sauber, which for sure he will. Lets's hope he develops the car as fast as possible in order to start fighting for podiums. How sweet it would be. So lest's keep fingers crossed for Kimi
Hi jpp47
Oy, thanks for telling what the Swiss papers are writing, they are like the "local media" and they probably have a lot of inside information also.
Ferrari has yet again thought too much of their developing skills. Remember when The Car Developer El Banco was taken to Ferrari? LMAO
Now Vettel is giving feedback to the engineers, so I don't have any high hopes for Ferrari. Ferrari will once again start missing Kimi after they finally - once again - realize, that Kimi was The Car Developer.
It would be awesome if Alfa Romeo would become the black horse, fighting for victories, now that Kimi The Car Whisperer is directing the development in the right direction, wouldn't it?
What happened to Lotus and the world's fastest driver (hah) Lettuce? That's one other team, who refused to acknowledge Kimi's input and tried to take all the credit and desperately tape it on Lettuce.
You can be sure that fingers are crossed also here in Espoo!!!! Once the Finnish media gets over the "wonderchild" (hah) Bottas, maybe they start to root for Kimi instead....
Kimi's switch will be Ferrari's pain and Alfa Romeo's gain. Mark my words!!
quoteThe thousandth Grand Prix in Formula One history takes place in two weeks in China - Räikkönen is not interested in numbers
Turun Sanomat 29.3.2019 9:22 1
Heikki Kulta, Manama
Räikkönen, who is a veteran with 293 GPs under his belt, doesn't become nostalgic, although his career covers almost 30 % of of that era.
– I am not driving my thousandth race. And I have never chased after any numbers. In the end games it is only a number, and I have never thought anything about it. It's all the same to me if the number would be - lets say 20.000. I drive because I want to race. When it doesn't feel good anymore, then I will do something else.
Räikkönen will next year be the first driver in F1 history who has raced most races.
– To me it's all the same if I have raced ten more or ten less races than someone esle. Those kind of records have no bearing on anything I do. I do what I feel I want to do. I want to race and I want to maximise everything I possibly can.
Has something changed in how you prepare for the weekend, now that after Ferrari you can't race for victories with Alfa Romeo?
– Why couldn't I win? Räikkönen grins.
– You never know. I have heard those stories many times before. We will do as good work as we possibly can. We are not like the big teams, but we have a great group and we have the tools to build a good car, a car we can continue developing.
– I want to help this team forward as best as I can. Nobody knows yet how far we will go, but it will become clear in the future. What it is and what it isn't will show if we are satisfied or not.
Räikkönen assures that he enjoys racing.
– We want to win and fight for the championship. As a team we know pretty well what to expect. They are future things, that we can someday achieve, but now we only know what to expect realistically in this phase.
– We have only one GP under our belt. It's impossible to know yet, what this weekend will be like. If we had got everything right in Australia, then we would have been sixth. Is it a different story here in Bahrain is something we will see once we get the car on the track.
Alfa Romeo has brought new parts to Bahrain. Among others a new floor. The Hinwill team expects Sakhir track to reveal a better and stronger C38-car and it's competitiveness, because overtaking is way much easier here than in the opening race.
Räikkönen has been eight times on the podium in Bahrain.
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Sat Mar 30, 2019 7:01 am (Last edited: Sat Mar 30, 2019 8:17 am)
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