F1 Racing: Speed is only half the story

So in he will step - the monosyllablist with the jagged, glacial, helmet design - that once-familiar McLaren man. In he will climb, unrecognisable now in his red Puma race suit, sliding into that famous, detailed seat and settling now - as if he belongs there - right into the centre, the heart, of Michael Schumacher's world.

The new world, that is to say, of Kimi-Matias Raikkonen.

Of course, this is more than just your standard driver swap.

I mean, how do you refill the footwell of the most successful F1 champion of all time? How do you follow that act? You cannot. It cannot be reproduced. The combination will never again be as strong - that mix of Michael, the Ferrari team and the merging of minds.

You can, however, move on, and you can wonder how it will be - this Kimi/Ferrari episode, this new-look, age-old Ferrari team who will now be minus, probably, one of their major technical players (Ross Brawn); and they will be substantially reweighted, now that Michael has gone, by one Felipe Massa, that very good, Italian-speaking race winner who knows the Maranello boys and the Ferrari system about as well as anyone on the planet.

So, how will Kimi fare?

Let's look first at the parameters...

Kimi is the purest driver in Formula 1 right now. He thinks in straight lines; he drives in straight lines - and he manages the dynamic weight of the car perfectly. There is nothing extraneous about his driving. He seamlessly blends the craft of gentle-firm pedal application with little-turn/big-turn steering inputs.

And he knows what he's doing. Kimi isn't some Finnish ice sculpture, discovered under 50ft of snow and now fortuitously plugged into an F1 cockpit. Kimi went through his crashing, toy-throwing spell in Formula Renault, discovered the basic principles - and honed them. For this, Steve Robertson - his co-manager along with Steve's father, David - deserves major credit. A former pupil of driving coach Rob Wilson himself, Steve long ago instilled the methods of Fifty-Four Nine (FFN - Wilson's driving academy) into the mind of Kimi Raikkonen. No surprise, then, that every current Raikkonen-Robertson F3 driver is also trained by FFN.

Kimi's ability was never more obvious than in the McLaren/Montoya days - and the comparison is worth making because Felipe Massa is, today, somewhere up there with Montoya in terms of speed and an ability to win a race. Juan Pablo would complain of understeer; Kimi, more likely to be concerned with poor traction, would have his car slightly angled towards the apex before touching the brakes.

He'd initially turn the wheel more gently than would Juan; and - while Juan was dabbing the throttle and already releasing the positive lock - would apply the substance of the steering against a decreasing brake-pedal pressure; and would have a straighter, more compliant car on exit as a result of his extremely subtle throttle-teasing. Juan drove with heart, feel and reflex - and could never tame the McLaren's understeer. Kimi, driving with his head, his hands and his feet, was a quantum leap in front.

Kimi is now as fast as was Michael - with the proviso that Michael was a more technical driver: he was more able to play with the car's electronic aids in order to compensate for changing fuel loads or degrading tyre grip. Would Michael, in Kimi's McLaren, have been so hurt by cold tyres in stint two in Hungary this year? We'll never know - but we can surmise that Michael (a) might not have allowed the brakes to have run so hot in the first stint, and (b) might have done more with the diff/traction control/brake balance ratio to get the rubber working in stint two.

Fernando? Fernando in a Renault is now as quick as Kimi, but we have yet to see whether Fernando will be as fast as Kimi in a McLaren with understeer.

Kimi is definitely quicker, meanwhile, than Massa - quicker in the sense that he will more consistently be able to sustain the car's ultimate lap time, and in so doing be less demanding on himself and the car; like Michael, though, he will from time to time be out-qualified or even out-paced by Massa (just as Michael was occasionally out-paced by Rubens Barrichello and even Eddie Irvine). e

Race Craft

Relative to Michael, this is probably Kimi's weakest area. He succumbed to Michael's pressure in Canada this year - and then there was the famous incident at Magny-Cours in 2002, when Kimi ran wide on oil and lost the lead to Michael. Both events were late-race. Was it mental fatigue? Physical/mental fatigue? Maybe.

Relative to everyone else, Kimi is right there. No doubt about that. What about Monaco 2005, when Kimi, in the lead, resisted the temptation to stop under Safety Car conditions, lost his time cushion and then pulverised his opposition at the restart? You could say that this was just great, on-the-limit driving - but then you would be missing the cerebral side of it, because Kimi, believe it or not, is human and it is human to wonder if you've done the right thing and therefore to feel the pressure.

Then there's that other, wonderful, Michael-like talent, evident when Kimi has to brake later than he wants in order to command an inside line. He releases the brakes a little, straightens the car, brakes again, making it clear that no one turns in until he turns in - and then he's off, a dragster again, clean and easy. No locked inside fronts, no Ralf-like flurries. Just small, effective movements.

The big question, of course, concerns Ross Brawn. Ross's greatest role at Ferrari is that of technical co-ordinator - the engineer who puts together the best package of people, who motivates the team, who controls the technical absolutes. Along the way, though, Ross has developed a great little sideline of also calling the race-day shots from the pit wall - something he did with Michael Schumacher throughout his F1 career.

This was a relationship out of the Jim Clark/Colin Chapman mould - a relationship that Jim once described as bordering on the telepathic. "One minute I'd think to myself, 'What's Dan [Gurney] up to?'" Clark said, "and the next, as if by magic, Colin has the information I need on the pit board. We're on exactly the same wavelength."

When Ross says, "In, Michael, in", therefore, Michael doesn't hesitate to wonder (a) why his strategy has suddenly been changed, (b) what is going to happen to the other Ferrari driver, (c) if they know what he knows, or (d) if this means a last-minute splash-and-go. He just does it. And Ross knows he is going to just do it. And that is why they're so great together. Ross thinks exactly the way Michael thinks - and vice versa. Not 'pretty much' or 'thereabouts'. Exactly. Down to the last flux of thought.

Kimi will have no such link - and, in moments when two-way creativity could win the day, that may hurt him.

Technical Input

I don't think this will be a problem for Kimi. Like Michael, Kimi always drives absolutely on his car's limit, thus making it relatively simple for the engineers to make qualitative judgements. And the engineers - that network of great people who Ross Brawn has stitched together over the years - have been together long enough to be able to survive without the odd suggestion or observation from Michael, assuming, of course, that Michael ever did say to Ross: "I've just noticed a mega heat-shield on the McLaren. We should get one built and I'll run it at Fiorano next week."

Great feedback, in other words, is only important if the driver isn't as fast as a Michael, a Kimi or a Fernando. The next tier of drivers all believe they are on the limit; the problem is that they're performing at their limit, not the car's. That is why so many teams appear to chase their tails - to stagnate, or to make little progress - as BMW were this year, for example, before they began to race Robert Kubica.

Kimi doesn't need to open his mouth, then, in order to do the technical job at Ferrari. He just needs to drive - even though, at McLaren, he proved to be very precise in his comments from the car and in the debriefs.

The big issue, I guess, was that Michael's second home was Fiorano and that, yes, he used to phone his engineers constantly, thirsty for information from every test, every analysis. Kimi, we know, likes to hibernate when he's not driving the car - hibernate as in hanging with his mates, riding/driving anything on wheels, or swinging a hockey stick. So what will happen now that he is at Ferrari? Will the whole technical structure be irreparably damaged?

I believe that Michael's diligence was more of a motivational thing than a pivotal part of Ferrari's technical development. After all, this was pretty much 'his' team. These guys were all loyal to Michael - and he, in turn, repaid them by paying meticulous attention to everyone with whom he worked. Sure, he had much to impart - and the more time he spent with his engineers, the better their performance. Now that the era is over, Kimi's by definition will be different - and will require a different approach. Kimi has no history with the guys; they're not there for Kimi. They are there, instead, for Ferrari. Kimi knows that - and thus their loyalty will be earnt in a different way.

In the car. On the stopwatch.On the podium. That will be Kimi's technical input.

Leadership

This is an interesting one because Felipe Massa, managed by Jean Todt's son, Nicolas, is in there at Ferrari, planning to win more races and prove he's right up there with Kimi for speed and ability. Whether he ever beats Kimi is to some extent irrelevant. The key point is that Massa believes he can do it. That makes the new Ferrari team very different from anything we've seen since 1996.

To my mind, this is Ferrari's biggest hurdle: with Michael, they've proved a million times over that a team maximise their title chances by running a clear one/two driver line-up; Williams and McLaren have proved, by contrast, that a team neutralise their championship potential by allowing their equal-status drivers to take points from each other.

I'm not talking team orders here, because the odds of (a) an opportunity arising that justifies them and/or (b) there being a legal way in which they can be applied, are about 100 to one. No, I'm talking the nuances of Ferrari being Michael's team and everyone thus naturally falling into line. Michael would do the tests that he and Ross deemed crucial; Michael alone would run the option tyres on Friday because there was a chance they'd be raceable, and the primes he already knew. The little things. The things that shaped a championship.

Without Michael, Ferrari will inevitably become FERRARI SpA Sefac (Societe Esercizio Fabbriche Automobili e Corse), and the 'leadership' will be - what? Jean Todt? Luca Montezemolo? There's nothing wrong with those two in isolation - but where will the delineation be between Ferrari trying to win the championship and Ferrari finding the best route towards winning the championship? With Michael, they never had to make that choice.

Now, on paper, there is no reason to think Ferrari will handle this problem any more successfully than have Williams or McLaren in the past; on the contrary, Ferrari proved, pre-Michael, to be good at winning a handful of races but not a championship.

Kimi can do little about this. He'll be on a massive learning curve and will be assuming that the best way to win a title is to win as many races as possible. Quite right - except that Felipe, now that he is a winner, will be thinking the same way. That is what makes all this so different.

Beyond that, remember that Kimi, unlike Michael, is focused more on tomorrow and the next race than on the longer-term championship. Ferrari won't feel this for a while, because the Michael Syndrome won't instantly evaporate with his departure, but it will in time become evident. Kimi is a free Finnish spirit. Michael is a teutonic, championship-winning driving machine. There is a difference.

Politics

General politics will not affect Kimi. On the contrary, his ability to remain completely unmoved by what is written or said about him in the media; his total lack of interest in unions such as the Grand Prix Drivers' Association; his ambivalence about dignitaries; his ability to shrug off anything that is thrown at him, be it a penalty, an engine failure or a messed-up pit stop; his fondness for saying nothing; his penchant for leaving the track as early as possible and minding his own business - these will all be positive counterbalances for a Ferrari team who will be more 'political' than they've been over the past decade. (I say "more 'political'" because this will be a Ferrari team without Michael - without a central pillar. As such, the various support structures will naturally increase in strength and hence not always be centrally focused.)

There is another kind of politics in F1, however - an area in which Michael excelled. I refer, of course, to his ability to maximise Ferrari's (and thus his own) chances of winning by reading the regulations, looking at the variables and playing his options. While Williams, for example, enticed Michelin back into F1 without creating some sort of medium-term exclusivity clause, Michael (working with Brawn, Todt etc) managed to create a situation that enabled Ferrari, virtually alone, to race with Bridgestones. As a result, he helped himself to another couple of championships. The outside world merely saw McLaren switching from Bridgestones to Michelins; Michael saw Ferrari with an unfair advantage.

Can Kimi play a similar role in the most powerful team in the business? I think not. Kimi is about as interested in thinking laterally, or long-term, as I am, sadly, in playing ice-hockey. Of course, the residue of the Michael era will still be there for a while. Montezemolo and Todt and Brawn (if he remains) will endeavour to think the same way they did with Michael, to look for the same political moves. The catalyst, though, will be gone, and the original (political) ideas, as a result, will be fewer.

Michael has said he is looking at playing a role within the Ferrari/Fiat family, so perhaps this will be it - a sort of political consultancy that looks not at the FIA's sporting or technical codes or at engineering specifics but at championship strategy in general. At the Unfair Advantage.

Whether Michael would actually want to help someone like Kimi is, of course, another matter. I can see Michael eager to help Ferrari, and wanting to assist Felipe. But Kimi? I'm sure Michael would say that Kimi needs no help from anyone. And thus it would begin...

Leadership' and 'race CRAFT': they are causes for concern. What's more, if Michael is to play any future role - if - you can be sure his sympathies will lie more with Felipe than with Kimi. Yes, Michael will want 'his' team to keep on winning: more power to Michael, though, if Felipe, his 'protege', can win, too, and if Kimi finds it... not as easy as they said it was going to be.

As for technical feedback, the matter rests somewhat on the commitment of Ross Brawn. The fear, from Kimi's point of view, must be that Ross will take not just one year off but two or three... and end up either fishing professionally or switching to Toyota for $30 million.

Plug Kimi into a quick, competitive car and he will win. Period. Definitely... providing, of course, that all goes to plan, that he's done his homework, doesn't make the odd mistake, and that Felipe doesn't interfere.

And that Fernando, cool, calm and almost unnoticed in a better-balanced McLaren team, is not at the same time notching up clear points and race wins, too.

Mind The Lap...

Perhaps Ferrari will do well to take a leaf out of McLaren's book

For raw speed, Kimi Raikkonen is as good as anyone in the history of Formula 1. As such, of course, he is capable of winning championships. He got as near as dammit in 2003 and 2005, and his eventual failure in both years could be blamed on poor car reliability rather than any failing on his part.

But, in order to dredge out of him the world-beating performances we've seen since McLaren hired him in late 2001, Ron Dennis and his not-always-so-merry men have had to work extremely hard on their young superstar's human frailties - including, it has to be said, his penchant for the odd light ale.

'Stand by your man', at least in public, is a maxim by which Ron Dennis lives his professional life. For that reason, he will never publicly reveal the efforts that he and a few trustees went to, these past five seasons, to keep Kimi on the (relatively) straight 'n' narrow. "We all make mistakes. We all have demons," is his favourite get-out clause if challenged directly on the point.

But his and those hand-picked colleagues' efforts were substantial - and were spearheaded by Mark Arnall, Kimi's physio. A McLaren employee for the past decade, Mark cut his teeth on Mika Hakkinen - and Mika was happy to admit that Mark's input was a hugely valuable part of his title-winning infrastructure. And it's true: Mark married a Finnish girl, learnt Finnish and moved to Monaco when he was working with Mika. Now he hangs out in Helsinki, down the road from Kimi's place.

Kimi has always required a lot more 'care' than Mika - or, let's face

it, the man he's replacing at Ferrari, Michael Schumacher, who got all the support he needed from Jean Todt, his team boss and friend.

So, do Ferrari know what they're getting? Let's hope so. Kimi himself seems to. At Monza, he revealed, he's hired Mark - "to carry on looking after me at Ferrari".

Good luck to them both.

By Robert Holmes

We want to hear from you!

Let us know what you would like to see from us in the future.

Take our survey

- The Autosport.com Team

Read and post comments