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
Driver | Total laps | Total distance (km) |
Esteban Gutierrez | 607 | 2,768.381 |
Nico Rosberg | 575 | 2,639.851 |
Lewis Hamilton | 563 | 2,584.445 |
Nico Hulkenberg | 554 | 2,538.464 |
Sergio Perez | 554 | 2,538.237 |
Max Chilton | 550 | 2,535.961 |
Paul di Resta | 553 | 2,519.735 |
Jean-Eric Vergne | 536 | 2,454.901 |
Charles Pic | 516 | 2,364.298 |
Valtteri Bottas | 514 | 2,352.264 |
Fernando Alonso | 505 | 2,350.775 |
Sebastian Vettel | 513 | 2,343.069 |
Felipe Massa | 513 | 2,336.486 |
Romain Grosjean | 495 | 2,270.402 |
Mark Webber | 495 | 2,264.727 |
Pastor Maldonado | 483 | 2,213.180 |
Giedo van der Garde | 469 | 2,148.691 |
Jenson Button | 455 | 2,090.785 |
Daniel Ricciardo | 448 | 2,050.709 |
Kimi Raikkonen | 260 | 1,182.379 |
Jules Bianchi | 253 | 1,165.003 |
Adrian Sutil | 249 | 1,159.095 |
Luiz Razia | 113 | 500.364 |
James Rossiter | 61 | 270.108 |
Pedro de la Rosa | 51 | 225.828 |
Davide Valsecchi | 16 | 74.480 |
Car
Team | Model | Total laps | Total distance (km) |
Sauber | C32 | 1161 | 5,306.85 |
Mercedes | W04 | 1138 | 5,224.30 |
Ferrari | F138 | 1069 | 4,913.09 |
McLaren | MP4-28 | 1009 | 4,629.02 |
Red Bull | RB9 | 1008 | 4,607.80 |
Caterham | CT03 | 985 | 4,512.99 |
Toro Rosso | STR8 | 984 | 4,505.61 |
Force India | VJM06 | 980 | 4,480.86 |
Marussia | MR02 | 799 | 3,669.41 |
Lotus | E21 | 771 | 3,527.26 |
Williams | FW35 | 664 | 3,090.92 |
Williams | FW34 | 333 | 1,474.52 |
Fastest lap times at the Circuit de Catalunya
Driver | Team | Time | Gap | Tyre | |
1 | Nico Rosberg | Mercedes | 1’20.130 | 0.000 | Soft |
2 | Fernando Alonso | Ferrari | 1’20.494 | 0.364 | Soft |
3 | Lewis Hamilton | Mercedes | 1’20.558 | 0.428 | Soft |
4 | Felipe Massa | Ferrari | 1’21.266 | 1.136 | Super Soft |
5 | Jenson Button | McLaren | 1’21.444 | 1.314 | Soft |
6 | Nico Hulkenberg | Sauber | 1’21.541 | 1.411 | Soft |
7 | Adrian Sutil | Force India | 1’21.627 | 1.497 | Soft |
8 | Kimi Raikkonen | Lotus | 1’21.658 | 1.528 | Soft |
9 | Paul di Resta | Force India | 1’21.664 | 1.534 | Soft |
10 | Sergio Perez | McLaren | 1’21.848 | 1.718 | Soft |
11 | Romain Grosjean | Lotus | 1’22.188 | 2.058 | Soft |
12 | Sebastian Vettel | Red Bull | 1’22.197 | 2.067 | Soft |
13 | Pastor Maldonado | Williams | 1’22.305 | 2.175 | Soft |
14 | Valtteri Bottas | Williams | 1’22.468 | 2.338 | Soft |
15 | Esteban Gutierrez | Sauber | 1’22.553 | 2.423 | Soft |
16 | Mark Webber | Red Bull | 1’22.658 | 2.528 | Soft |
17 | Charles Pic | Caterham | 1’23.115 | 2.985 | Soft |
18 | Jules Bianchi | Marussia | 1’23.167 | 3.037 | Soft |
19 | Jean-Eric Vergne | Toro Rosso | 1’23.223 | 3.093 | Soft |
20 | Davide Valsecchi | Lotus | 1’23.448 | 3.318 | Soft |
21 | Daniel Ricciardo | Toro Rosso | 1’23.628 | 3.498 | Soft |
22 | Max Chilton | Marussia | 1’24.103 | 3.973 | Soft |
23 | Giedo van der Garde | Caterham | 1’24.235 | 4.105 | Soft |
2013 F1 season
- Mercedes originally favoured Heidfeld for Hamilton’s seat
- Take F1 Fanatic’s new 2013 season quiz
- F1 Fanatic’s new year thanks and credits 2014
- The complete F1 Fanatic 2013 season review
- The drivers, teams and cars of 2013
Browse all 2013 F1 season articles
Image © Jamey Price/James Moy
Kobayashi24 (@kobayashi24)
4th March 2013, 12:16
Kimi will log his laps on race day.
Prisoner Monkeys (@prisoner-monkeys)
4th March 2013, 12:27
The problem is that everyone else will be racing on race day, not simply logging laps.
stren (@stren)
4th March 2013, 12:45
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
Prisoner Monkeys (@prisoner-monkeys)
5th March 2013, 6:35
No, I’m suggesting that everyone else will have a greater understanding of how their cars work than Raikkonen will.
Kobayashi24 (@kobayashi24)
4th March 2013, 13:05
I don’t expect it to be a problem.
Robbie (@robbie)
4th March 2013, 14:32
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.
Max Jacobson (@vettel1)
4th March 2013, 19:48
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.
F1_Americana (@f1americana)
4th March 2013, 22:07
…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. ;)
Max Jacobson (@vettel1)
4th March 2013, 23:01
@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 ;)
Blackmamba (@blackmamba)
4th March 2013, 23:20
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!!!!!!!!!!
tmekt (@tmekt)
5th March 2013, 18:04
@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.
andae23 (@andae23)
4th March 2013, 12:20
… In total, the teams have done just under 50,000 km: 49,963 km. That’s more than Earth’s circumference!
MaroonJack (@maroonjack)
4th March 2013, 12:46
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.
andae23 (@andae23)
4th March 2013, 13:05
… I fail to notice your point. But anyway, it sounds more impressive than “that’s the average distance an individual drives in a year” ;)
PJ (@)
4th March 2013, 13:32
Rubens Barrichello has done double that in races only.
sumedh
4th March 2013, 12:22
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.
hzh (@hzh00)
4th March 2013, 12:30
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.
hzh (@hzh00)
4th March 2013, 20:12
I mean Raikkonen of course
tmekt (@tmekt)
5th March 2013, 18:07
He was a bit rusty in the first races/qualis
hzh (@hzh00)
7th March 2013, 16:59
Nonetheless, that was after missing 2 complete seasons of F1 racing; so, back to my point, missing few laps will not matter.
Tango (@tango)
4th March 2013, 12:36
Did Bianchi and Chilton have similar track conditions when they posted their fastest lap time ? (same goes for the caterham pair). If so, wow.
jh1806 (@jh1806)
4th March 2013, 12:41
I’m sure Bianchi will knock the socks off Chilton this season.
verstappen (@verstappen)
4th March 2013, 14:50
No, all cars improved massively, so you can’t tell. Same like saying that Webber will fight at the back.
Fer no.65 (@fer-no65)
4th March 2013, 13:17
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…
MagillaGorilla (@magillagorilla)
5th March 2013, 4:35
@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.
tmekt (@tmekt)
5th March 2013, 18:09
They didn’t have a second car and the problem was with the design rather than the specific chassis.
Hairs (@hairs)
4th March 2013, 13:39
As any kimi fan will tell you, though, his miles are twice as good as anyone else’s miles so it all evens out.
5150 (@)
4th March 2013, 15:57
Good one. He, he
zippyone (@zippyone)
4th March 2013, 18:17
True that :)
RL
4th March 2013, 13:45
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.
AndrewTanner (@andrewtanner)
4th March 2013, 14:38
Maybe they just don’t have as much to test? Of course, that is a symptom of having less cash.
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”!
schooner (@schooner)
4th March 2013, 17:19
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.
Max Jacobson (@vettel1)
4th March 2013, 19:54
@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!
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.
Max Jacobson (@vettel1)
4th March 2013, 22:01
@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!
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.
Max Jacobson (@vettel1)
4th March 2013, 23:06
@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!
tmekt (@tmekt)
5th March 2013, 18:11
They certainly do more than 5 laps in quali.
Max Jacobson (@vettel1)
5th March 2013, 20:06
@tmekt – including out laps and in laps yes, which I have missed in my estimation! Still, the figures remain roughly the same ;)
Bullfrog (@bullfrog)
4th March 2013, 21:17
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).
BJ (@beejis60)
4th March 2013, 22:20
And Kimi will still likely turn better results than most.
Andy2286 (@andy2286)
4th March 2013, 23:31
“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?
Mad Eric (@mad-eric)
5th March 2013, 10:39
At least it’s a accurate description ;-}
Magnificent Geoffrey (@magnificent-geoffrey)
5th March 2013, 16:29
Liking the amount of kms the C32 has under its belt. Let’s hope this translates to another solid start to the year.
KeeleyObsessed (@keeleyobsessed)
31st January 2014, 13:28
I’m sure this must have had an effect on his first race last year.. Oh, wait…