Nobody could have predicted that, least of all me, so he certainly had his name down for a title chase.Ten races in and he is the closest man to the greatest pretender of them all, Sebastian Vettel. Despite only winning one race so far, Kimi currently sits in second place after five P2 finishes.
However even for a die hard fan like me, Raikkonen's performances have been disappointing, particularly the Monaco to Silverstone run.
Granted, Sergio Perez hitting him helped nobody's cause, but Kimi should not have been in that position in the first place. Qualifying pace has eluded Raikkonen all last season and has lingered back this year but in Monaco he should have been on the ball more.
Canada was probably one of the worst Kimi performances I have seen. Getting lapped by the race leaders was heart breaking to watch, it looked as though he just didn't want to be there. Silverstone was a better race, he probably didn't want to push so hard on the tyres given the situation.
Raikkonen should definitely have won a few of the races where he came second. China, Bahrain, Germany are all GP's he should have won. Passing up way too many chances to pass, and getting stuck behind Mercedes cars especially are reasons why Kimi isn't sitting top.
So you might be wondering "why Kimi is even on this list", "why are you bashing your favourite driver?"
He's on this list because of his determination and attitude to improve.Despite only winning a 1/4 of the GP's that Vettel has this season, he's only 38 points adrift of the championship. That's simply incredible. Fernando Alonso and Nico Rosberg both sit below Raikkonen with multiple wins.
Raikkonen definitely holds the crown of consistency king, setting the most points finishes record shows that by far. He's doing the best with what he's got, and that's quite a bit considering the very small budget and back room staff issues Lotus currently have (losing James Allison).
The only reason of why I'm hard on Kimi is because I'm not one of these people totally mesmerised by their favourite. All eight of the Vettel fans world wide can't see that the car is doing all the work (IN MY OPINION) but I can see that Raikkonen has flaws. But I can also see him working on them, which makes for a complete racing legend.
Kimi will go down in history as one of the greats, and you read it here first, Kimi Raikkonen will be 2013 Driver's World Champion.
well I said Kimi would be an all time great to top even Michael S when Kimi first hit the F1 circuit and had his debut year. I predicted then he would be one of the top 5 all time greatest before he was done. now leave him alone, he knows what he is doing. hahaha
ReplyDeleteI wish he would hurry up and know what he is doing lol!
DeleteYou are actually bashing Kimi very unnecessarily here. The Lotus just isn't as fast in qualifying as Mercedes and Red Bull. No one else besides those two teams have been on pole for the whole season long, Lotus has only had one front row start the whole season, it is pretty obvious.
ReplyDeleteIn Monaco Kimi was directly behind Mercedes and Red Bull there wasn't much more he could do, Monaco depends on qualifying and Lotus is slower then Mercedes and Red Bull in qualifying. The tangle with Perez was a silly incident, it was classified as a racing incident but most people saw it as a mistake from Perez who was being overzealous. Kimi still did a great job to get a point from that race.
Criticizing Kimi for Canada is very unfair, Lotus were not that fast around Canada and Pirelli decided to use tyres that were harder then usual for Canada which made it more difficult for Lotus. Canada is a circuit that requires very precise breaking. Kimi's rear breaks failed just after a few laps, a problem which Kimi also had during free practice, the team was suppose to fix the break problem. He was also under fueled and he had to drive in fuel conservation mode for the whole race. The team also made a mistake with a wheel gun, during one of his pitstops and that made him lose a few places. Considering all of the issues Kimi had during that race, he actually did a good job to end up where he did, and the team said so afterwards. You cant blame a driver for technical issue.
In Silverstone Lotus also wasn't as competitive, they were using the hardest tyres and the temperatures were low. Despite this Kimi was running in second place with only a few laps left. His team made the mistake of not putting Kimi on new tyres during the safety car, Kimi himself asked the team to give him new tyres during the safety car, he knew it was the wrong call but they couldn't see it. Kimi could have finished the race in second place if his team only listened to him. I dont know how anyone could blame Kimi for the Silverstone results. This is pretty much a clear cut case and the team apologized to him afterwards.
There was no way for Kimi to win in China or Bahrain. On both occasions Lotus just didn't quite have the pace. In both of those races Kimi finished second by more then 10 seconds away from the first position. That is all you really need to know, it shows that they didn't really have the pace to win as it wasn't even close.
In Germany Lotus did have the pace as Kimi only finished 1 second behind Vettel, but overall Red Bull and Lotus has very similar pace. When you start from behind on similar pace it is always going to be difficult to get ahead. The safety car also messed up Lotus's strategy. They were not planning on doing a 3 stop strategy but they had to change the strategy due to the safety car. Perhaps Kimi could have done better with a different strategy, but they couldn't discuss it during the race since Kimi's radio was broken. In the end they could have won that GP, but the circumstances went against it.
You cant just look at the results to decide which races was good and which wasn't, there is always a bigger picture. If you want an example of a bad race for Kimi then look no further then the Malaysian GP. That was Kimi's worst race of the season. Other then that he has done a good job so far.
While I appreciate and respect your opinion I do have to disagree, the 'bashing' was quite fair all considering.
DeleteIt all just seems like excuses, especially Canada, that was by in large the worst Raikkonen performance I've seen.
In Monaco despite being notoriously difficult to pass people, Kimi had ample opportunity and did not want to take it.
He just needs to shake the monkey off his back and go for the pass sooner when it presents itself, especially when faced with the challenge of either Mercedes car.
I agree with all of the points keep up the good work.
ReplyDeleteCitroen leasing & Mercedes leasing