Raikkonen misses out on testing mileage

2013 F1 season

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Lotus’s Kimi Raikkonen goes into the first race of the season having completed less than half the testing mileage of many of his rivals.

A series of setbacks have dogged the team’s pre-season preparations leaving Raikkonen with fewer laps on the board than any other driver who was allocated six days of running.

His first run in the E21 at Jerez was spoiled by a clutch problem which limited him to 40 laps. On the team’s arrival at the Circuit de Catalunya a telemetry problem meant Raikkonen completed fewer laps than any other driver. His fourth day in the car was interrupted by a gearbox fault which required a replacement.

The team scheduled him to run on both of the dry days at the final test but food poisoning kept him out of the car for the first of them. On his final day another gearbox fault on his first lap meant he missed most of the morning.

This meant Raikkonen covered just 1,182km of pre-season testing, almost 900km less than the next least-active driver. “For sure, we haven’t completed all the laps we wanted during pre-season, but that is often the case,” he said. “We’ve found a few issues and we have solutions for them, which is positive.”

The only race drivers to have competed fewer laps than Raikkonen are Jules Bianchi and Adrian Sutil, whose drives were not confirmed until the final test.

Sauber rookie Esteban Gutierrez was the busiest driver, followed by the Mercedes pair, despite them managing just 29 laps in total during the first two days of testing.

2013 pre-season testing distance completed

Drivers

DriverTotal lapsTotal distance (km)
Esteban Gutierrez6072,768.381
Nico Rosberg5752,639.851
Lewis Hamilton5632,584.445
Nico Hulkenberg5542,538.464
Sergio Perez5542,538.237
Max Chilton5502,535.961
Paul di Resta5532,519.735
Jean-Eric Vergne5362,454.901
Charles Pic5162,364.298
Valtteri Bottas5142,352.264
Fernando Alonso5052,350.775
Sebastian Vettel5132,343.069
Felipe Massa5132,336.486
Romain Grosjean4952,270.402
Mark Webber4952,264.727
Pastor Maldonado4832,213.180
Giedo van der Garde4692,148.691
Jenson Button4552,090.785
Daniel Ricciardo4482,050.709
Kimi Raikkonen2601,182.379
Jules Bianchi2531,165.003
Adrian Sutil2491,159.095
Luiz Razia113500.364
James Rossiter61270.108
Pedro de la Rosa51225.828
Davide Valsecchi1674.480

Car

TeamModelTotal lapsTotal distance (km)
SauberC3211615,306.85
MercedesW0411385,224.30
FerrariF13810694,913.09
McLarenMP4-2810094,629.02
Red BullRB910084,607.80
CaterhamCT039854,512.99
Toro RossoSTR89844,505.61
Force IndiaVJM069804,480.86
MarussiaMR027993,669.41
LotusE217713,527.26
WilliamsFW356643,090.92
WilliamsFW343331,474.52

Fastest lap times at the Circuit de Catalunya

DriverTeamTimeGapTyre
1Nico RosbergMercedes1’20.1300.000Soft
2Fernando AlonsoFerrari1’20.4940.364Soft
3Lewis HamiltonMercedes1’20.5580.428Soft
4Felipe MassaFerrari1’21.2661.136Super Soft
5Jenson ButtonMcLaren1’21.4441.314Soft
6Nico HulkenbergSauber1’21.5411.411Soft
7Adrian SutilForce India1’21.6271.497Soft
8Kimi RaikkonenLotus1’21.6581.528Soft
9Paul di RestaForce India1’21.6641.534Soft
10Sergio PerezMcLaren1’21.8481.718Soft
11Romain GrosjeanLotus1’22.1882.058Soft
12Sebastian VettelRed Bull1’22.1972.067Soft
13Pastor MaldonadoWilliams1’22.3052.175Soft
14Valtteri BottasWilliams1’22.4682.338Soft
15Esteban GutierrezSauber1’22.5532.423Soft
16Mark WebberRed Bull1’22.6582.528Soft
17Charles PicCaterham1’23.1152.985Soft
18Jules BianchiMarussia1’23.1673.037Soft
19Jean-Eric VergneToro Rosso1’23.2233.093Soft
20Davide ValsecchiLotus1’23.4483.318Soft
21Daniel RicciardoToro Rosso1’23.6283.498Soft
22Max ChiltonMarussia1’24.1033.973Soft
23Giedo van der GardeCaterham1’24.2354.105Soft

2013 F1 season


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Image © Jamey Price/James Moy

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Keith Collantine
Lifelong motor sport fan Keith set up RaceFans in 2005 - when it was originally called F1 Fanatic. Having previously worked as a motoring...

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46 comments on “Raikkonen misses out on testing mileage”

  1. Kimi will log his laps on race day.

    1. The problem is that everyone else will be racing on race day, not simply logging laps.

      1. you’re not suggesting Kimi will be rusty ? Given how fast he was up to speed after 2 years break, I wouldn’t be worried about his speed and racecraft

        1. you’re not suggesting Kimi will be rusty ?

          No, I’m suggesting that everyone else will have a greater understanding of how their cars work than Raikkonen will.

      2. I don’t expect it to be a problem.

        1. I think KR’s abilities go without saying, but the team simply cannot have learned as much as some others about, among other things, their car/tire relationship. Not saying the other teams know exactly what to expect once they are under the different conditions of racing at different tracks, at different grip levels, at different temperatures, with different setups, but just saying that inevitably Lotus has to be a bit behind in their own knowledge of their own package, with the lesser testing.

    2. He has never been one to complain about a lack of mileage, so he’ll be fine I’m sure. If anything Lotus is at a loss, not Kimi.

      1. …who drives a Lotus. :) Just wanted to point out that it’s impossible for something to hamper the team but not the driver who sits in the team’s car, even if it is Kimi Freakin’ Raikkonen. ;)

        1. @f1americana – very true, although I doubt Kimi himself in terms of race-rustiness or a lack of understanding of the car will be affected adversely ;)

          1. Kimi simply likes his drink, and that does not go very well with hard work. I’m gonna go as far as calling him lazy coz he went for a bender the night before a scheduled test session and was simply too hungover to get up in the morning. Responsibility people!!!!!!!!!!

          2. @blackmamba

            Well that’s simply untrue. According to Lotus he started feeling ill already in the Friday evening which, unless he had started excessive drinking already in the Friday morning, would certainly rule out hangover. And if he was suffering from hangover already on Friday it wouldn’t have affected his Saturday anymore.

            Kimi might not take his lifestyle to extreme as some drivers do but he certainly isn’t lazy.

  2. … In total, the teams have done just under 50,000 km: 49,963 km. That’s more than Earth’s circumference!

    1. Err… Earth’s circumference is nowhere near 50000 km. It’s just over 40000 km. But it isn’t that impressive anyway. I make more or less that distance with my car every year.

      1. Err… Earth’s circumference is nowhere near 50000 km. It’s just over 40000 km.

        … I fail to notice your point. But anyway, it sounds more impressive than “that’s the average distance an individual drives in a year” ;)

    2. Rubens Barrichello has done double that in races only.

  3. Alonso did more laps than Felipe in spite of having one less testing day. I think Ferrari will be disappointed to give Pedro just 51 laps, and that too on a circuit not representative of the calendar.

  4. Despite leaving F1 for 2 years, his 2012 comeback was very strong and he did not lack pace. So I doubt that missing some testing laps will affect his real pace.

    1. I mean Raikkonen of course

    2. He was a bit rusty in the first races/qualis

      1. Nonetheless, that was after missing 2 complete seasons of F1 racing; so, back to my point, missing few laps will not matter.

  5. Did Bianchi and Chilton have similar track conditions when they posted their fastest lap time ? (same goes for the caterham pair). If so, wow.

    1. I’m sure Bianchi will knock the socks off Chilton this season.

    2. No, all cars improved massively, so you can’t tell. Same like saying that Webber will fight at the back.

  6. Last year it was worse for them as a team and Kimi as a driver as they lost a complete test because of chassis failure. And they put the car on 3rd in the first race.

    Ofc it’s not ideal, but it shouldn’t be a major problem…

    1. @Fer-no65 makes the best point I have seen on this subject, I nearly forgot all about that chassis failure, and rebuilds to get back into testing. But they had to go to their second car while the other one was fixed. If I remember correctly.

      1. They didn’t have a second car and the problem was with the design rather than the specific chassis.

  7. As any kimi fan will tell you, though, his miles are twice as good as anyone else’s miles so it all evens out.

    1. Good one. He, he

    2. True that :)

  8. is it for financial reasons that Marussia and Caterham have logged the least number of mileage? I would think if they were to aspire to be like the rest of the field they have to test like them too.

    1. Maybe they just don’t have as much to test? Of course, that is a symptom of having less cash.

    2. JP (@jonathanproc)
      4th March 2013, 17:05

      Caterham drove more kilometers than Toro Rosso, Force India, Lotus and Marussia (and Williams we’re only talking 2013 cars). Not sure why you think they’ve “logged the least number of mileage”!

  9. Kimi’s lack of mileage is probably of little concern in terms of his ability to quickly get to grips with the car. The lack of mileage in terms of Lotus having the new car properly sorted is a different matter.

    1. @schooner – exactly, that is the main concern here. They have logged the least amount of mileage of any of the teams (if we total Williams’ mileage from both cars), which will inevitably hamper their understanding of the car. I predict rather a lot of running in FP from them!

  10. Karl Fuss (@)
    4th March 2013, 21:16

    I love the stats that accompany a lot of the articles on this site.

    Out of curiosity, does anyone know how many kms the drivers do in an average race weekend?… 3 practice sessions, quali and the race.

    1. @niblips – If we say on average a driver does 30 laps in each practice session (although that isn’t a very specific number!), 5 in qualifying and then the 300km average race distance, you can roughly estimate a driver will do around 900km in a race weekend. That is a very estimated figure though!

      1. Karl Fuss (@)
        4th March 2013, 22:35

        Thanx. after i made that post i thought about it for a minute and came up with a figure of 800km. could be more or less depending on weather and reliability and what-not.
        multiply that by 19 or 20 races a season and it adds up quickly.

        1. @niblips – it all goes by in a flash though! Pretty much running in FP depends on the conditions though, so I’d say 800km is a good ballpark figure for an average of the season. Multiplied by 20 you get 16000km (or 15200 for the 19 races), which around 2/5 of the way around the world! Then 22 drivers are factored in, and the distance begins to look insane!

      2. They certainly do more than 5 laps in quali.

        1. @tmekt – including out laps and in laps yes, which I have missed in my estimation! Still, the figures remain roughly the same ;)

  11. Not surprised to see Stevie Gut on top of this chart, and Nico H up there too, given Sauber’s lack of a simulator.

    I’ll be cheering them on, hoping they can score a few moral victories for good old engineering & track-testing – if not real victories. But I wonder how long they can go on without investing in their own technology (or maybe Ferrari’s).

  12. And Kimi will still likely turn better results than most.

  13. “The team scheduled him to run on both of the dry days at the final test but food poisoning kept him out of the car for the first of them.”
    So is that what they’re calling a hangover these days?

    1. At least it’s a accurate description ;-}

  14. Liking the amount of kms the C32 has under its belt. Let’s hope this translates to another solid start to the year.

  15. Lotus’s Kimi Raikkonen goes into the first race of the season having completed less than half the testing mileage of many of his rivals.

    I’m sure this must have had an effect on his first race last year.. Oh, wait…

Comments are closed.