Raikkonen shows Ferrari is coming

Kimi Raikkonen's Formula 1 career has been in something of a tailspin since he rejoined Ferrari.

Last year was easily his least impressive since he first arrived at motorsport's pinnacle in 2001: he struggled with the handling characteristics of the F14-T, he was usually nowhere near team-mate Fernando Alonso, and he looked lost and unhappy.

But things are different this year. The Ferrari team has been through a substantial makeover, the SF15-T is a far more accomplished package than its predecessor, and Raikkonen is suddenly looking a much happier man.

Up until the Bahrain Grand Prix that happiness hadn't quite translated into results. Raikkonen is undoubtedly driving better than at any time since he returned to Maranello, but he's still struggled to put it together in qualifying (he's 0-4 against team-mate Sebastian Vettel so far on Saturdays), and his first two races of 2015 were both compromised in an all-too-familiar way: contact on the first lap and thus always on the comeback trail.

The late safety car had halted Raikkonen's pursuit of Vettel in China © LAT

But signs that Raikkonen was getting back to his best were evident in China a fortnight ago.

He recovered from qualifying a disappointing fifth with a feisty (and clean) first lap to get back up to fourth, and was closing down Vettel for the final podium spot before a safety-car finish halted his charge.

Raikkonen's ace in the hole since he returned to Formula 1 from a brief stint in the World Rally Championship has been his supreme ability to carefully manage the delicate Pirelli tyres. That was in evidence in China, as he ran a longer middle stint than his fellow frontrunners in the hope of a payoff at the end of the race, which very nearly came.

In Bahrain there was no late-race safety car (which meant this race was far tamer than the thriller seen at Sakhir 12 months ago), and no pesky Williams drivers between Raikkonen, his team-mate and the silver Mercedes.

He started fourth, but was up to third within two turns of the start after going round the outside of Nico Rosberg as the German tried to challenge countryman Vettel for second into Turn 1.

Rosberg trailed both Ferraris early © LAT

Ferrari's long-run pace during Friday practice was better than Mercedes, which left everyone wondering whether that meant the Scuderia could be a genuine contender for victory here. With both red cars tracking Lewis Hamilton through the opening laps those expectations were raised.

But Mercedes still has fundamentally the fastest car in the field, and 'corrections' were made to the set-up of the W06 after practice to improve its performance over longer stints (following a discovery that the bulk and surface temperatures of the rear tyres were going in opposite directions) so this race was always Hamilton's (and Mercedes') to lose.

The fastest car in the field starting on pole should be a shoo-in, and in reality neither Ferrari looked a genuine contender after the early stages.

When Rosberg breezed back past Raikkonen using DRS into Turn 1 on lap four, and then pulled a similar move on Vettel at the start of lap nine to grab second, Ferrari's chances of challenging Mercedes looked over. This was going to be China all over again...

Ferrari's only hope of coming back at Mercedes was to be aggressive on strategy. Pirelli estimated the soft tyre needed to do 18-20 laps for a two-stop race, but Ferrari pitted Vettel on lap 13 (his tyres were 16 laps old, including his Saturday qualifying run) in an attempt to force its rival's hand.

Vettel and Rosberg's undercut compressed the top three momentarily © XPB

Mercedes reacted, pitting Rosberg and Hamilton consecutively on the next two laps, which led to a momentary thrill as the three converged together at Turn 1 when Hamilton rejoined - the result of the significant performance boost both Vettel and Rosberg received from bolting on a new set of softs.

Hamilton held firm, while Rosberg had used his DRS at the start of the lap to forge back ahead of Vettel.

Meanwhile, Raikkonen briefly assumed the lead before making his own first stop on lap 17. It was at this point that Raikkonen's race came alive. Ferrari opted to put Raikkonen on an alternative strategy - fitting his car with a set of medium tyres.

This looked a strange move initially, for Pirelli's practice data suggested the medium rubber was almost two seconds per lap slower than the soft, with a degradation advantage of only 0.2s per lap.

Yes Raikkonen would get the payback of the quicker tyre at the end of the race (on lower fuel), but surely he would lose far too much time driving around on the slower tyre for it to matter? There was no hint from the first stint that this would prove the masterstroke it was.

Pastor Maldonado's Lotus started the race on the mediums, but was buried in traffic and pitted to get off them after just 10 laps. The others who chose mediums at their first stops (Fernando Alonso's McLaren and the two Toro Rossos) were all chancers - with nothing to lose and nothing really to gain. Their initial pace looked reasonable compared with those extending stints on used softs, but nothing particularly special.

Raikkonen rejoined with a 14s deficit to Hamilton's Mercedes, but instead of getting bigger that gap stabilised between 12 and 14s for the next 14 laps, before Hamilton made his second (and final) stop on lap 33.

Raikkonen was somehow able to match Hamilton's pace on a theoretically slower compound of tyre, and this meant he was simultaneously catching Vettel and Rosberg in third and second.

The 'Iceman's' race was starting to shape up nicely.

PACE COMPARISON: RAIKKONEN VS HAMILTON
LAP RAIKKONEN HAMILTON
19 1m38.403s 1m39.284s
20 1m38.688s 1m39.364s
21 1m39.193s 1m38.819s
22 1m39.013s 1m39.023s
23 1m38.986s 1m39.085s
24 1m39.017s 1m39.161s
25 1m39.101s 1m38.919s
26 1m39.171s 1m39.185s
27 1m39.398s 1m39.408s
28 1m39.389s 1m39.365s
29 1m39.606s 1m39.453s
30 1m39.733s 1m39.533s
31 1m39.995s 1m39.451s
32 1m39.565s 1m39.551s

Raikkonen's middle stint on the medium Pirellis set up his late charge © LAT © LAT

"I think we had a few different approaches of how to run the race and obviously this was one of them and it depended where we were," explained Raikkonen. "I think we did a very good job out of it. On the medium tyre it was quite easy to keep up with them and catch them."

Raikkonen's speed at this point in the race certainly caught the eye of Mercedes, with team chief Toto Wolff suggesting Raikkonen probably "surprised himself" with his pace on the medium.

"We could see that the prime wasn't any slower at all, if not quicker," he said. "If you compared it to qualifying, where the prime [medium] was two seconds slower than the option [soft] it was quite an interesting result.

"We were monitoring his pace and it was flat curve - his times weren't getting any worse, so I think from his point of view it was an aggressive strategy, and it worked for them."

While Raikkonen was turning heads on the pitwall, Vettel again forged ahead of Rosberg by pitting earlier (on lap 32), but understeered off at the final corner on lap 35 (Rosberg's out-lap) and damaged his front wing. This necessitated an unscheduled third stop on the next lap and ended any hope of a fourth consecutive podium finish since he became a Ferrari driver.

Hamilton used his fresh mediums to pass Raikkonen and build a margin © LAT

Meanwhile, Hamilton (armed with a fresh set of mediums) closed down Raikkonen at a rate of almost two seconds per lap, breezing past at Turn 1 on lap 40. Ferrari promptly pitted its man at the end of that lap, giving Raikkonen 17 laps to make some magic happen on the soft tyre.

"Some felt Kimi should have gone on mediums [at his final stop], but it was getting colder and the working range comes into play," explained Pirelli motorsport boss Paul Hembery.

"We could see there were signs of graining that we hadn't seen in practice. We attributed that to the temperatures going below 30C.

"He had the choice, but I figured if he stuck with the soft and eased them in... It was quite a long-ish stint to be going that quickly and we thought he might have a big deg at the end of it - but he didn't."

Raikkonen rejoined with a 23.641s deficit to leader Hamilton at the end of his out-lap, and immediately began lapping two seconds quicker. By the end of lap 45 the gap was down to 15.180s. By the end of lap 48 it was 11.7s.

By now Raikkonen was pegging back Hamilton at roughly one second per lap. With nine to go this was going to be tight...

But Hamilton reacted, arresting the slide a little with a couple of low 1m38s laps. With seven laps to go Raikkonen was 10.6s adrift, so Hamilton could afford to be 1s per lap slower and still win the race. This was not to be a heroic triumph against the odds for Ferrari.

The world champion had the race to himself until the brake-by-wire scare © XPB

Or so we thought. Hamilton had the extra protection of team-mate Rosberg between himself and Raikkonen, but Nico's brake temperatures had run out of control - a legacy of those 'corrections' Mercedes made to improve its race pace after struggling on Friday.

By the end of lap 54 Raikkonen was just 1.1s behind Rosberg, and on the penultimate lap the Mercedes' brake-by-wire system failed, causing Rosberg to run off the track at Turn 1 and hand second place to Raikkonen.

On the final lap Hamilton's BBW also failed. Entering that final lap he led Raikkonen by 6.2s. Across the line the gap was just 3.380s. Looking at the pace Rosberg had on the final lap (after adjusting to his problem), if the race had been just two laps longer, Kimi Raikkonen would very likely have won the Bahrain GP.

"We saw very hot brakes on Nico's car in traffic following Kimi, Sebastian first, and then lots of fighting and hard braking, so we monitored that, but at the end with lapping backmarkers those brake temperatures went through the roof and we had brake-by-wire failures on both cars at the same corner," explained Wolff.

"When that happens the brake by wire switches into the conventional system and then you are without weapons to defend.

"We knew the changes we made on the car were compromising a little bit the brake temperatures, but then it was a hard race with lots of overtaking - especially on Nico's side - and both cars struggled to make it through some of the backmarkers at the end. And when you follow another car, or a couple of cars, the air stream collapses and this is what made the brakes go.

"In hindsight, knowing that this [set-up change] caused the problem and nearly lost us the race, and lost us P2, we will probably look to do things differently in the future."

It was Raikkonen's first visit to the podium in 560 days © LAT

Hamilton survived the scare to top the podium, and rightly received plaudits for chalking up his third victory in four races (and extending his championship lead to 33 points over team-mate Rosberg), but Raikkonen's performance really stood out.

Ferrari team principal Maurizio Arrivabene came on the radio at the end of the race to say: "Hey Iceman! I'm proud of you". But Raikkonen's first podium since the 2013 Korean GP characteristically failed to impress the man himself.

"Obviously it's much nicer than being out of it, but to come second, quite close to Mercedes, it's a bit disappointing," he said. "I'd rather take this one than something else, but you cannot feel happy. We are happy about second, but still disappointed. We want to win."

In Bahrain he almost did. Mercedes still has the fastest car in Formula 1, but it's now under serious pressure from behind, and is having to push the W06 to breaking point to keep the emerging red tide at bay. Big upgrades are expected ahead of the next round in Spain.

If Ferrari can out-develop Mercedes, we could be set for a very interesting season indeed. And in those circumstances, Kimi Raikkonen's second Ferrari career could be set for a glorious upturn in fortune.