How Kimi Raikkonen has overtaken Felipe Massa as fastest Ferrari driver
Kimi Raikkonen has been faster than Felipe Massa in recent races
Ferrari’s Shanghai switch provoked the usual debate over team orders – but it also signified a development that could have a crucial bearing on the outcome of the world championship:
Kimi Raikkonen is now the faster of the two Ferrari drivers.
Do you agree? Is this good or bad for Felipe Massa? Here’s what I think, share your ideas below.
In my Chinese Grand Prix predictions I wrote:
I’m getting an impression that Kimi Raikkonen has become the quicker of the two drivers once again. In a recent interview he said that at Spa he had gone back to an earlier setup configuration and it had improved his pace.
He was quicker than Massa at Spa (but crashed) and was very quick late in the race at Monza. At Singapore he was reeling in Massa and Hamilton when the safety car came out, then at Fuji he out-qualified Massa for the first time since the British Grand Prix.
That trend continued at Shanghai. Raikkonen out-qualified Massa again, this time with one lap’s less fuel on board. In the race, he was consistently quicker until having to yield (see the Chinese Grand Prix analysis for more information).
Has Raikkonen improved or is Massa struggling?
Why has this happened? Perhaps it’s the changes that he made at Spa. Perhaps the pressure of the championship is beginning to unsettle Massa.
This is a situation Massa hasn’t been in since he won the Formula 3000 Euro Series in 2001 – and that was a championship he won emphatically with six wins in eight races, sparing him a down-to-the-wire nail-biter like this.
Hamilton on the other hand was in the same situation last year, and won the GP2 championship at the final event in 2006.
What does this mean for the championship?
Obviously, if Massa’s not getting the most out of his car, then it makes it all the harder for him to take the fight to Hamilton.
As we saw in Shanghai Massa can expect Raikkonen to yield positions when he needs to. But he can’t expect Raikkonen to fight as hard as he would for his own title. Remember Michael Schumacher coming up short at Suzuka in 1999 when chasing Mika Hakkinen for Eddie Irvine’s benefit?
If Raikkonen proves the quicker of the two at Interlagos, how should Ferrari exploit that? Put him light on fuel to take the lead and contain Hamilton’s pace? Or fuel him up and try to out-fox Hamilton in the pit stops?
Or will Massa reverse the trend at Interlagos, where he has always been strong? He put his Sauber fourth on the grid there in 2004, won in 2006, and under normal circumstances would have won there once more last year.
Get the latest articles from F1 Fanatic for free via RSS or our email subscription service. Click here for more information.
Patrickl said on 21st October 2008, 17:43
When you really look at it, Kimi hasn’t been “struggling” for much of the season.
It was pretty unfortunate that Kimi was rammed out of the Canadian GP and at Monaco he eliminated himself. After that he was still only slightly behind Hamilton and Massa.
Then he had a few races where indeed his qualification started to go bad. In Germany, Hungary and the European GP he was definitely struggling compared Massa. During the European GP his engine blew. Especially that loss puts him further behind Massa and Hamilton.
In the other 2 races were he didn’t qualify so well he still managed to score 9 points. So overall that’s not that much damage.
Then at Spa he claims to be in better form and indeed he’s faster than Massa again. But now apparently he has adopted a high risk strategy to make up for the amount of points he’s trailing.
Unfortunately even though he’s again clearly faster than Massa, he fails to finish 3 times in a row. Totaling 4 DNF’s in a row is just too much.
So I’d say it’s not so much that Raikkonen was slower than Massa at all. He just failed to score points too often.
I created a chart showing how Raikkonen, Hamilton and Massa got to their scores. It shows them going pretty much equal until Raikkonen has his 4 DNF’s in a row starting at the European GP.
http://arcade.laweb.nl/RoadToFame2008.jpg
I don’t think Ferrari can do anything to win the driver championship. They can only hope that Hamilton runs into some trouble. If Hamilton has no real problems then I doubt it would matter if Raikkonen wins in front of Massa or the other way around.
Interlagos is one of those few tracks where Massa really performs well. So he might have some extra speed there. On the other hand Massa doesn’t really deal well with pressure. So it might just as well be that he messes up his qualification (as he seems to have done on the last few races)
Dan Wells said on 21st October 2008, 19:33
It is nothing to do with confidence or form in my opinion. In recent races, since Japan in fact, Ferrari have brought updates which have improved the rear end stability of the car, while sacrificing Massa’s desire for the solid front end. This means Raikonnen has been able to come back to where he was- with the solid rear.
I think it has been confirmed that next year Ferrari will make Massa Number 2, since Raikonnen has now got 9000k of track testing. Ferrari do not care about the WDC- only the WCC. They are getting ready for a 2009 title assault with Raikonnen.
I feel bad for Massa in this sense- he has been superb all year, yet Ferrari still seem to be leaning towards Raikonnen.
But ofcourse, i could be wrong. :P
F1Fan said on 21st October 2008, 19:39
Keith,
correction: Kimi has not just recently been faster than Massa. He’s always been faster. His **car** is now as fast, if not faster, than Massa’s. That’s about it. In pure speed, a motivated Kimi is no match for anyone on this grid.
Alastair said on 21st October 2008, 19:58
I want to see Kimi, Lewis and Felipe qualify in that order and then watch to see if Lewis will let Massa past.
Gusto said on 21st October 2008, 20:22
I was amazed when Massa got he`s drive for Ferrari, to think he will/maybe be a WDC without a win from pole is a scandal ! .
Becken said on 21st October 2008, 20:31
I think Felipe is under a huge pressure. In Monza, in a wet track, he outpaced Kimi again, but could not put himself in a position to win the race and take the championship lead from Lewis. He can´t take risks at the same level than Lewis.
Ted Kravitz made an interesting insight into the qualifying at Fuji that show how Felipe couldn’t cope with the pressure and trashed his qualifying lap:
But something that I can’t understand is why Ferrari never understand what really happens with his car when they are trounced by Lewis/McLaren:
Stefano has said the same thing after Germany GP.
I think they really don’t understand entirely their car and how it works in different conditions and Kimi´s lack of technical skills in the set up sector doesn´t help too. This, I think, explain why their drivers are so inconsistent through the year.
I bet that Michael will be back at the 2009 pre-season to set up the car again.
Oddball said on 21st October 2008, 21:51
@Gusto#20
I’m by no means a fan of boy Massa, but in all fairness he won from pole both in Turkey and in Valencia (which – to rub it in – was in fact a hat trick as he also had the fastest lap).
Personally I don’t want neither him nor Hamilton to have DC on their CV – I’d like to propose a new cost cutting measure: cancel the remainder of this years championship due to lack of any worthy contenders :)
Senor Paz said on 21st October 2008, 23:52
Keith:
How is it that everyone already forgot who lapped fastest in Fuji, only one race ago? Felipe was flying in the second and third stints, clocked 3 fastest laps in a row and overtook Button, Heidfeld and Webber twice.
I agree that Kimi has improved his pace, obviously something related to car development, but you seem way too keen to put Felipe down on this site. The statement that Kimi has “overtaken Massa as Ferrari’s fastest driver” is ludicrous.
Patrickl:
“Interlagos is one of those few tracks where Massa really performs well.”
Few? What about the ‘boring’ races where Felipe just dominated the entire weekend, like Magny-Cours, Bahrein, Turkey, Spain, Valencia and Singapore?
Senor Paz said on 22nd October 2008, 0:02
And Becken:
You make a great point about Ferrari’s management. Let’s face it, they’ve been rubbish this season. Domenicali has brought the worst Ferrari package (and by package I don’t mean just the car. The car is actually not too bad, just very unstable in terms of grip and unable to cope well with anything different than a dry track with hot weather. I mean the pit crew, strategy team, development, etc.) in a decade.
And yes, the performance in Hockenheim and Shanghai was just shocking by Ferrari standards. And you put it perfectly when you say that all this instability obviously affects the drivers’ performance. For god’s sake, this is the worst Kimi Raikkonen season of his entire career!
Nick said on 22nd October 2008, 0:14
17 – Massa has not been superb all year, his first two races he couldn’t keep the car on the track.
22 – Felipe did NOT dominate magny cours, Kimi was severely outpacing him before the exhaust problem. Spain? Kimi won the race. Singapore? he was absolutely awful at the back.
Patrickl said on 22nd October 2008, 1:02
Senor Paz,
Well, at Spain and Magny Cours Raikkonen was faster and in Singapore he wasn’t very impressive either. Looked more like a light car for his opening stint.
So that leaves Bahrein, Turkey and Valencia. I’d call that “few” yes.
To be honest his competitors were pretty close behind him there too. It’s not like he lapped the field or pulled even a substantial gap.
Melanie said on 22nd October 2008, 1:46
I think the press has been publishing the technicalities the wrong way around, I think Kimi is the one who wants the stable and reactive front end while Felipe is the one who wants the back end of the car to be stable.
I personally think that one of the reasons why Felipe is or was suddenly looking so good was because Kimi was doing so badly. I’am not trying to take away any credit from Felipe, he himself has stepped up to the plate. But if Kimi was also in the mix then he just wouldn’t have looked so good.
At the moment the problem isn’t Felipe’s car, he is still using the same kind of components that he used to win at Valencia. Kimi on the otherhand has just gone back to the older configurations used on the car, some sources has mentioned that Kimi’s big problem was that Ferrari introduced a new suspension at the German GP. Kimi just couldn’t get the suspension to work for him, and they also added some updates to the car that made it even more difficult for Kimi to cope with the handling of the car. The F2008 has a very narrow setup window and Kimi couldn’t find a setup within that narrow range that suited him, while using the newer package. Kimi has mentioned in a recent interview that they basically had to rebuilt the car for him by using all the older components of the car. Some of the components go as far back as the beginning of the year. Kimi has reverted back to the old suspension, front wing, some of the older aerodynamics and he has also reverted back to the brakes he used while driving for Mclaren. It took Kimi and Ferrari some time but they have slowly been improving.
We are only now really starting to see the effects of the improvement, and one of the immediate effects you get is that it now suddenly appears as if Felipe is now much more up against Kimi then he was just a few races ago.
I think the fact that Kimi is now suddenly almost back up to speed and that the whole of Ferrari’s championship hopes are hanging squarely on Felipe shoulders, is causing him some stress. While that is going on Mclaren are also constantly moving forward.
From Felipe’s whole demeanor in the last three races one could really see that he is out of sorts, it seems like the pressure is getting to him somewhat.
However with that being said. Brazil might just exactly be what Felipe is looking for. Everyone knows he is very comfortable and confident at his home race. So the best cure for Felipe’s pressure might very well be his home GP.
CD said on 22nd October 2008, 5:26
Kimi has been the faster between the two ever since. But Massa is Michael’s protégé, so they try to create a car for Massa. And forget all about Kimi’s driving style. (After all, Kimi got the WDC last year anyway, no harm done.) After developing the car for Massa, they saw him up on the WDC title contention while Kimi slides down. Ferrari tried to make it up on Kimi by finding the right setup and add new components to pull Kimi up again on the contention. But while pulling up Kimi again, Massa failed to hang on with Lewis on the title chase and dropped few points as a result. This was maybe the development for Kimi’s driving style handicapped Massa.
I’d always hate to see Michael on Massa’s side. I think Ferrari should back Kimi again next year. But I don’t know if they would unless Michael is totally out on Ferrari’s garage.
Patrickl said on 22nd October 2008, 8:05
I also wouldn’t be surprised if Massa’s dropping performance over the last few races was caused in part because he cannot use Kimi’s setup anymore.
In Monaco Massa admitted he had needed Kimi’s setup to finally set a good time. Perhaps Massa was using more of Kimi’s setup or of the comparison in telemetry. I’d assume that if Kimi’s car was so different, Massa would be all on his own.
DG said on 22nd October 2008, 8:33
Melanie #27: Now there’s a thought, Max and Luca are agreeing on gradually standardising the cars used by different teams from next year, yet it looks like Ferrari will have to provide two completely different cars in 2009 to keep both their drivers happy….
Is this allowed? Will Massa have an F2009 while Kimi has an F2008/A?