Measuring My Mojo

I didn't have anything to do with Kimi Raikkonen's stalling at the start of the first race of the year at Melbourne, finishing eighth as a result. I take no credit for that at all. Only after that did I write my Atlas-Autosport column on the subject of World Champion drivers, pointing out the many who have served their sport extremely well and the others â€" blessedly few â€" who haven't. It was then that I said that I feared Kimi Raikkonen would fall into the latter camp. For the 2005 season I was willing to back lots of other drivers for the top spot. Indeed, Anyone But Kimi.

So, how have I been doing? Frankly, pretty darn well, considering that I have to fight the considerable might of the combined McLaren and Mercedes-Benz organisations. My campaign started well at the next race, with a failed tyre valve at Malaysia that dropped Kimi from fourth to ninth at the finish. I couldn't keep the Finn off the podium in Bahrain, where he was third, but I did arrange for him to take it easy on his engine there. This meant that it had plenty of torque left for Imola, where his Mercedes V10 was stout enough to fracture a CV joint on the eighth lap while he was in the lead.