Raikkonen Delivers for Ferrari

Ferrari’s 193rd victory came courtesy of its debutant Finn Kimi Raikkonen, and he made it look oh so easy. As he started from the front, team mate Felipe Massa was at the back. The Brazilian had an electronic problem in his gearbox’s management, and then Ferrari elected to change his engine and thus he moved further backwards. Overall it was a tough start to the 2007 season for Massa.

While Kimi opted for the medium-medium-soft tire choices, Massa was on a single-stop strategy and thus started on the softs as he was likely to get held up in traffic early on. This was indeed the case as he battled his way past the Red Bulls and Hondas, and after his stop on lap 29, on went the mediums. If all Raikkonen had to worry about was the lack of a radio and the odd lapse of concentration, he really didn’t have much to worry about at all.

McLaren left Melbourne leading the world championship, with 14 points to Ferrari’s 13, but however much Ron Dennis might have bleated about the possible effect of BMW’s strategy for fast-starting Nick Heidfeld the writing on the wall indicated that the Ferrari was a second a lap faster in race trim.

Raikkonen reeled off a string of fastest laps early on, his best being 1m 25.235s compared to Fernando Alonso’s 1m 26.314s and Lewis Hamilton’s 1m 26.351s. Even had the silver arrows had a clear run at the first corner, there was no way they would have challenged the red car for victory this day. On the positive side for Mclaren, the MP4-22s were reliable and quick enough to leave everyone else behind.

2007 Formula One Season

The first race of the 2007 F1 season is just around the corner. Racing will get underway on March 18th at Albert Park in Melbourne Australia. The debate continues over who will be the better performer of Raikkonen or Massa. Heres what Christian Klien had to say, "There is no doubt that the Ferrari seems to be the quickest car at the moment, maybe as much as 0.3s and 0.5s per lap on longer runs. Their first lap performance is probably not that much better than the other competitive teams, but it's their consistency that make them difficult to beat. We have to remember that Ferrari has 8 years experience with Bridgestone, so they know exactly how to set the car up to suit these tyres, and that's an advantage for sure.

A lot of people have been pushing Massa quite hard but I think that when the racing starts Raikkonen will have the race pace when it matters most. Over 70 laps he will be fast, consistent and get the most out of the used tyres. This will be important. It is one thing to set times in testing, but it's when the racing starts that Kimi will push 100% all the time." I have to agree with his statements as I feel Raikkonen will be better at laying down consistently fast times as well as being more consistent from race to race. We will see this weekend if that theory is true or not.