From Finished Era to Finnish Era

With Michael Schumacher off the scene, Kimi Raikkonen took over his mantle by dominating for Ferrari. By MARK HUGHES

On Saturday at around 5pm, when most other drivers were still in debriefs or on media duty, Kimi Raikkonen strolled out of the Ferrari motorhome in his civvies - and then out of the paddock, his work done for the day.

He didn't at that moment look much like Michael Schumacher's replacement. A day later he was again first to be finished, crossing the line comfortably ahead of the McLaren-Mercedes duo of Fernando Alonso and Lewis Hamilton. This time he looked very much like Schuey's replacement.

On the 41st lap, just before coming in for his final stop, Raikkonen had blasted the Ferrari around in a stunning 1m25.2s, over 1sec faster than anyone else would record all race. It was also 0.7sec faster than anything else he did. Coming out of the blue like that, at a time when he had the race bought and paid for, it told of how much he'd had in reserve.

Ten laps later, just seven from the end, he ran wide at turn seven after locking his right-front wheel. He rescued the moment, clattered over the kerb, and proceeded to the victory, the first guy to do so on his Ferrari debut since Nigel Mansell in 1989.

Kimi's explanation of the incident also hinted at the untapped reserves: "Yeah, I was looking at something else, not putting in too much effort." It had been a walk in Albert Park for him. The Ferrari was in a different performance league to everything else out there, and only then did Raikkonen's Saturday post-pole-position comments, when he said he didn't like the car's balance on new tyres, begin to make sense.

The 0.3-0.4sec advantage the car had over McLaren on Saturday was in fact the F2007 seen in its least flattering light. Only Kimi's occasionally-glimpsed raw pace on Sunday revealed the true picture.

The only man who might have challenged him - his team-mate, Felipe Massa - had been taken out of the equation by his gearbox problem in qualifying and subsequent engine change. Starting from the back on a one-stop strategy, Felipe would be forced to spend most of his long first stint in a queue of slow traffic, losing 3-4sec per lap to the leader for a long time.

Raikkonen scampers away, as Hamilton slots in behind Heidfeld © LAT

It was noticeable that Massa was taking a lot of care to drive out of the slipstream of the cars ahead of him, as though he were very anxious to keep airflow to his radiators. In the late stages, with a bunch of the two-stoppers out of his way, he was pressuring Giancarlo Fisichella's Renault for fifth place, but could never seem to get close enough to try a move, despite being way quicker.

Again it looked as if not being able to run in another car's slipstream was hurting his ability to pass. Was the Ferrari marginal in its cooling? At around the same time, Kimi's race engineer, Chris Dyer, was agitatedly walking between the pit bench and the garage and 'cool' pit signs were being hung out to Kimi.

His engine temperatures were running too high. Could this be the car's Achilles heel? The team played it down afterwards, and insisted Kimi's problem was caused by a small water leak. The pit signals had been necessary because Raikkonen's radio had ceased functioning right from the start.

Such glitches were the only sliver of encouragement for the others. As Kimi climbed out of the car and walked into the collecting-area garage, he was surprised to receive a congratulatory slap on the back from a yellow-helmeted McLaren driver.

Kimi looked like he may not have recognised who it was - which would be understandable, for it was Lewis Hamilton, delighted at finishing third on his F1 debut. Indeed, only McLaren's Alonso-favouring strategy had prevented Lewis from taking second.

Hamilton had overturned Alonso's advantage over him on the grid within a few seconds of the start. As Raikkonen took off unopposed, Alonso had his hands full trying to fend off Nick Heidfeld's light BMW.

Hamilton, meanwhile, was being forced over to the right by a defensive Robert Kubica in the other BMW and, in an instant of decision, swept across instead to the far left of the track. In doing so he not only passed Kubica but also went around the outside of Alonso, whose attention was still on Heidfeld, who slipped through turn one in second place.

It was beautiful, instinctive racecraft from Hamilton as he took up his place behind Heidfeld. At the end of the first lap Raikkonen came around already 1.4sec clear of a pack comprising Heidfeld, Hamilton, Alonso, Kubica, Giancarlo Fisichella's Renault, Mark Webber's Red Bull and the Toyotas of Ralf Schumacher and Jarno Trulli.

Heidfeld was running much lighter than everyone around him, this part of an unusual strategy that also involved starting on the soft tyres when almost everyone else was on the hards. The softs were definitely the slower tyre over a stint, on account of a graining period of the left-front that lasted as long as 10 laps.

Nico Rosberg was the best Toyota-powered runner in his Williams © LAT

They were also more susceptible to abuse if pushed too hard on a high fuel load. Hence Heidfeld being fuelled for just 14 laps, four fewer than Raikkonen, eight fewer than Alonso.

The reasons behind the anomalous strategy were ingenious and to do with the new requirement of having to run both types of tyre during the race. The Melbourne event historically features safety car periods in the early laps.

Statistically, the odds were in favour of that occurring. BMW gambled on those odds. Had an early safety car been triggered, Heidfeld would have been able to pit and get onto the preferred hard tyres within his refuelling window - and would therefore have been on the right tyres for a larger proportion of the race than anyone else.

He'd be able to attack to the end, when the others were defending on their slow tyres. The team had covered itself by giving team-mate Kubica a conventional strategy. But against the odds there were no safety cars, the first time in years that's happened here.

That was the bad news for Heidfeld. But the good news was that the softs actually held up very well. With the higher track temperatures of race day and the rubbering-in of the surface, the graining was much less severe. It allowed Heidfeld to open a gap to the heavier McLarens, though he could offer no threat to the ever-more-distant Raikkonen.

"I didn't have to push hard in the first stint," explained Raikkonen. "It maybe helped that on the first few laps I wasn't being pushed and so I was able to look after the tyres when the car was still heavy. But I knew what was needed and that's all I did. The radio was the only problem, and even then I knew pretty much the race plan so it was not a big thing. The only time it could have been a problem would have been if there was a safety car."

The McLarens were running around in formation, Alonso making no moves on his team-mate, content to play the waiting game and see how the stops panned out. He was running a lap shorter than Lewis, so would be unlikely to pass at the first stops, but the critical thing would be how they were each fuelled at those stops, and thereby how long their middle stints were.

Given that their pace appeared much the same, whichever of them was given the longer middle stint would likely win the battle, as it would give a crucial track-position advantage around the time of the final stops by allowing them to stay out longer on low fuel.

"There was nothing pre-arranged on this," said Alonso. "It was decided by the team, I think maybe around lap 15-16."

Hamilton was the first driver since Villeneuve to lead on his GP debut... © LAT

So in his first grand prix, Hamilton had put manners on his double world champion team-mate into the first corner, then proceeded to deal with the pressure of him filling his mirrors. He did brilliantly.

It was fascinating watching them run in formation, Lewis all late turn-ins and using all the track on the exits, Fernando turning in earlier and with room to spare on the exit. Occasionally Hamilton would run a little bit too wide and drop a wheel in the dusty grass, but it seemed not to interrupt his rhythm.

That said, Alonso gave the impression that he wasn't pushing, and indeed later confirmed that he spent most of his time taking advantage of the slipstream to save fuel that he'd be able to use to his tactical advantage later on.

His lap-time profile from his time behind Hamilton also shows a more even, consistent pattern, apparently confirming that he wasn't pushing as hard. This was a measured, calculating and very smart drive from the world champion. He admits he still hasn't fine-honed his driving to the very different demands of these Bridgestones after years on Michelins.

He still isn't entirely comfortable and so cannot yet push to the edge, and here was Hamilton making things extra uncomfortable for him. It would have been very easy to overreach in such a situation. It took a lot of self-control and a champion's self-assurance to squeak a result from last weekend. He may have been fighting below his peak, but it was only Hamilton's stunning performance that had made this apparent.

Heidfeld pitted out of second place on lap 14, this early stop, before the traffic had spread out much, losing him a lot of track position. The strategy gamble had failed to pay off. He rejoined back in seventh. It left Raikkonen 14sec clear of the McLarens and still pulling away at 0.5sec per lap. The Ferrari's pace really was overwhelming - even with Raikkonen not pushing to the limit.

Kimi's raw pace when he did let loose suggested that if he ever had experienced difficulty adapting to the Bridgestones, he was probably over it by now. We really needed to have had Massa pushing him to find out for sure, but that will have to wait until next time. Even so, there was nothing about Kimi's performance on Saturday and Sunday that suggested he wasn't completely on top of his game and able to push to the limit whenever he chose.

This year promises to offer us further perspective on how the pre-eminent talents of Raikkonen and Alonso stack up to each other - and as of Melbourne, even taking into account the performance advantage of Raikkonen's car, Kimi's driving looked on a higher level than Alonso's.

Interestingly, there are engineers at McLaren, with the data in front of them, adamant that they still haven't seen from Alonso the sort of devastating high-speed precision that they used to routinely get from Raikkonen.

Robert Kubica, clearly not thinking about his BMW-Sauber's gearbox © LAT

You get the feeling that they're still waiting for that 'wow' moment, when they realise their man really is something special, whereas the Ferrari guys probably got to see it for the first time with Raikkonen last weekend.

Raikkonen's stop came on lap 18, enabling Hamilton to savour what it was like to lead a grand prix for a few laps. Alonso came in on lap 22, Hamilton a lap later. The way fate dealt the cards, this was awkward timing for Hamilton.

On his last flying lap, with Alonso behind him on his in-lap, they had to negotiate their way past Anthony Davidson's Super Aguri, this costing Lewis more time than Fernando. In addition, Hamilton was then delayed on his in-lap by Adrian Sutil (for which the Spyker driver was later given a drive-through penalty).

It all added up to around 1sec delay at the critical time. But, partly negating that, his stop was 0.6sec quicker than Alonso's - because less fuel was pumped in. This allowed Hamilton to get out still ahead of his team-mate, but the shorter middle stint it ensured meant he was now on the tactical back foot.

This was a tricky situation for McLaren. Whatever call it made on strategy was going to favour one of its drivers over the other. Forced to play chess against themselves, how had the decision been made? "We operate as a team," was all Martin Whitmarsh would say about it.

There are two possibilities: either a straight preference was given to Alonso as the title-chasing driver, in much the same way that Ferrari used to be criticised for in the Schumacher years; or a policy had been agreed upon where the faster-qualifying driver's crew (in this case Alonso's) is given preference.

The pair were now 12sec behind Raikkonen, a gap that Kimi would maintain, give or take a second or two, for the rest of the race. The first stops accounted for Webber falling out of contention. He'd done well to hold onto seventh through the first stint, no threat to Fisichella but well ahead of the Toyotas.

But he was gradually losing hydraulic pressure and, when the time came to stop, he lost 30sec while the mechanics tried to get the fuel flap open. Finally it was levered open and the hydraulics were repressured, but it lost him a load of places.

The electronics went haywire thereafter and the fuel flap this time jammed open, giving the rear wing what Adrian Newey described as Monza downforce levels. This contributed to a spectacular 360-degree spin on the pit-entry road on Webber's second stop. He finished 13th.

Ten seconds or so behind the McLarens were the BMWs, Kubica ahead now of Heidfeld. Fisichella was a further 10sec adrift of them, his best lap over 0.5sec slower than the McLarens'. The Renault had shown promising long-run form in practice, but this did not translate at all on race day.

"No," agreed Pat Symonds, "and we're not sure exactly why. It's probably down to the different track temperatures."

Fisi felt that the balance of the car was good, but that it lacked overall grip. His team-mate Heikki Kovalainen was having a fraught time. In a car in which he had no confidence, each time he tried to attack he would invariably give himself a wild ride across the grass or, in one case, suffer a big spin.

His best lap was 0.7sec slower than Fisi's and he finished a lowly 10th. It was a nightmare beginning for him, though he held his hands up: "I was just not controlled enough. I felt I needed to be aggressive to move up the field, but I made far too many mistakes."

Flavio Briatore wasn't mincing his words: "It wasn't good enough. This was not the real Heikki. Maybe it was his brother!"

With the second stops coming onto the radar Kubica dropped out of fourth, the BMW breaking fifth gear in a repeat of the problems the team has suffered with its new seamless unit through the winter. Heidfeld's ran trouble-free and he stayed comfortably out of Fisichella's reach to the end.

After banging in the stunning fastest race lap, Raikkonen made a routine final stop and a couple of laps later Hamilton made his. He was again disastrously disadvantaged by a backmarker - in this case Takuma Sato, who cost the McLaren further time by pitting at the same time. With Alonso on his tail, ready to let rip with two low-fuel flyers, it was effectively game over.

But Lewis's crew had been permitted to try to respond to the strategy disadvantage by fitting new rubber rather than scrubbed. This would give a golden lap potentially up to 1sec faster than a scrubbed set, but would then grain badly, making them slower over a stint but invaluable for track position at the critical time.

But Hamilton's 2.5sec delay behind Sato had made their fitting irrelevant. Alonso duly banged in the fast low-fuel laps, made a quicker stop, and got out comfortably ahead. His advantage had been enhanced by having gone into economy mode behind Hamilton, giving him an extra lap.

With the midfield two-stoppers out of the way, Massa was able to rise up to sixth. He used the softer tyres for the first stint, nursing them through the graining when he was stuck in the queue anyway, and was thereby able to press on with the hard tyres in the later stages.

Nico Rosberg's Williams was in traffic for most of the race, but he made maximum use of his clear laps and put a great late move on Ralf Schumacher at the Jones chicane to take seventh place. He set the race's fifth fastest lap, a couple of tenths faster than Fisi's best, though he still felt the car lacked the rear grip he needs for his aggressive driving style.

Ralf took the final point, though team-mate Jarno Trulli felt he'd been held up by him through the opening stint, this spiralling into further track-position penalties later. Both Toyota drivers reported the cars to be ill-balanced and inconsistent.

But at least they were better than the Hondas. Rubens Barrichello pulled a great overlooked drive out of the bag to salvage a lowly 11th. He'd spent 10 laps stuck behind team-mate Jenson Button, and complaining over the radio.

Button was struggling with what turned out to be a faulty or damaged front wing, but was never asked to move aside. Barrichello had to find his own way by. Once he'd done this he pulled away at the rate of 1.5sec per lap. He'd therefore lost around 15sec behind Button - he missed out on a points place by just 10sec. Button soldiered slowly round to 15th.

Spare a thought too for Anthony Davidson. After his brilliant fourth-fastest time in practice and his solid 11th-place qualifying slot, the Super Aguri's anti-stall kicked in off the grid, leaving him at the back, where he tangled with Adrian Sutil with sufficient force to wind himself and damage his back.

He nonetheless continued to the end, saying nothing about it over the radio. As Lewis Hamilton enjoyed the deserved plaudits for a wonderful debut, Anthony was stretchered off to hospital, unnoticed, with a drip attached to his arm. A cruel sport.