Martin Brundle at Spa
THE QUESTION on everyone’s mind at Belgium’s spectacular Spa Francorchamps circuit is: “What has gone wrong with Kimi Raikkonen?” The world champion is still theoretically in the fight for this year’s title but on recent form you’d have to say his chances are reducing.
This is a track where he’s been unbeaten in the past three grands prix, and despite another disappointing fourth grid slot in qualifying, if he can turn it around and win today, he will be only the third man ever to have won the race here four consecutive times, matching no less than Jim Clark and Ayrton Senna, and the only one to achieve it with two different teams.
Yet ironically, if he does win it will make life even more difficult for his team, Ferrari, which is in the invidious position of not knowing which horse to back for its title challenge. Kimi was signed as the man who would automatically assume the lead role, the throne formerly belonging to Michael Schumacher. Yet it isn’t working out like that as teammate Felipe Massa has hit a rich vein of form and is overshadowing his supposed team leader to the extent that Massa is freely saying he would expect support from Kimi in his title bid, if it comes to it, the Brazilian also reminding his teammate how much he helped him win the title last year.
Kimi has been making mistakes in qualifying, placing him behind slower cars in the races, while up front Massa has taken on McLaren’s Lewis Hamilton in fighting for the race. By the time Kimi has come alive, the main competition has been half a minute up the road. Then there was his error at the pit stop in Valencia when he went before his traffic light system had turned green, departing with the fuel hose still attached.
It’s another indication that all is not right with him. That incident bore all the hallmarks of a driver under pressure - which is something we’ve never associated with ‘The Ice Man’.
So what is clouding his judg-ment? I’m sure that mentally, both when he joined Ferrari last year and on the eve of this season, he assumed he had the measure of Massa. But it’s changed now. So if you’re Ferrari, what do you do? Right now their drivers are taking points from each other and losing out to McLaren and Hamilton. If they decide Massa is the man, how do they ‘park’ Kimi, and will he agree? A crystal ball is needed to second guess which one of them can best stop Hamilton becoming champion. We’re told the chance of rain during the race today is as high as 60%. Of the remaining six races, five of them - Spa, Singapore, Japan, China and Brazil - have a high chance of rain. Now think back to Kimi’s spellbinding performance in the rain of Fuji last year. Then think back to Massa’s disastrous five-spin wet race at Silverstone in July. If it rains, can you rely on the Fuji-spec Kimi showing up? Also, bear in mind that Massa was excellent this year in the wet Monaco Grand Prix. Which wet weather Massa will they get - the Monaco one or the Silverstone one? This is not something they are used to dealing with. Previously Schumacher was the clear number one and the other driver was there as technical support and rear gunner. It worked well, and ironically they were usually in battle with a McLaren team that ran its two megastars as equals, from the days of Prost/ Lauda, Senna/ Prost, through to Hakkinen/ Coulthard and Raikkonen/Mon-toya. Now McLaren have their clear number one in Hamilton and the position has been reversed.
That said, McLaren really need their other driver, Heikki Kovalainen, to be taking points off the Ferrari drivers. They need to bring him into play somehow, by running him on a light fuel load perhaps, and at least he splits the two Ferraris on the grid today.
Lewis has both eyes on an on-form Massa and is going to need every bit of help he can find if he’s to retain his current points lead to the glorious end. A McLaren driver has not been world champion for nine years, and the team has not won the constructors’ championship for a decade.
But none of this answers the original question: just what has gone wrong with Raikkonen? At this level there is nowhere to hide – from the television pictures, the body language, the copious volumes of data, the stop watch, and teammate comparisons. Can a sportsman be more exposed, living his world in the ultimate goldfish bowl?
Massa is adored at Ferrari, and has found a new way with his engineer Rob Smedley, meaning he has stepped up a level. Maybe Massa has gained a momentum within the team that Kimi isn’t equipped to deal with. He never has had that warm rapport. Also there’s the Schumacher question. Every time consultant Schuey shows up, Kimi seems to have a bad race. Maybe Kimi has just ticked all his boxes of driving for Ferrari, a world championship, significant money in the bank, and found himself thinking, ‘You know what, I’d still rather be on my skidoo than coping with this lot’.
Surely he’s way too young to be tired. I do hope so, he will be a big loss for F1.
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