Crash not to blame for Q2 exit – Raikkonen

2014 Australian Grand Prix

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Kimi Raikkonen says he wouldn’t have made it into Q3 even if he hadn’t crashed in the final moments of Q2.

The Ferrari driver said traffic kept him from getting the most out of his car up to that point.

“Qualifying wasn’t straightforward today, especially because of traffic,” said Raikkonen. “When I was on a quick lap, I had a car in front of me at every corner.”

“That stopped me getting a clean lap and at the end of Q2, I spun off damaging the front wing. I don’t think I’d have gone quicker anyway, as I had already reduced my speed at this point, because I knew already I wouldn’t make it to Q3.”

However Raikkonen was positive about the progress the team have made with the car overnight:

“It’s a shame, because compared to yesterday we have made some steps forward. In the wet we were quick and I had more feeling for the car.

“We know we have a lot of work to do in every area, especially on car set-up, but at the same time, we are sure we are going in the right direction.”

2014 Australian Grand Prix

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Image © Ferrari/Ercole Colombo

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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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25 comments on “Crash not to blame for Q2 exit – Raikkonen”

  1. Kimi told Turun Sanomat that new parts will be arrived in next few races to sort out the issues he faced with the car. I assume it might be an massive overhaul for the front end of the car to sharpen it more instead of being loose. I would’ve thought Ferrari understood kimi couldn’t cope with lazy front end.

    Non stop issues for Kimi from winter testing (lack of mileage) until melbourne gp so far, i hope he has better race tomorrow.

    1. That’s positive. Kimi really hasn’t had any quality time.

      1. He did leave a lot of loose front end parts on track in Q2;-)

  2. Autosport also quotes Raikkonen as saying:
    “That didn’t change the fact we had traffic on the previous lap. There was a McLaren going very slowly through Turn 5, and there were some other cars in front of us, but that’s how it goes sometimes.”
    I’m interested to know if that McLaren was Button, considering it was Button who was subsequently affected by the yellow flag in turn 3.

    1. his race engineer should time his outlap nicely…..fernando had much smoother traffic situation.

      Stella is really quality.

      1. Wish he was in Abu Dhabi 2010 though.

    2. lol, that was the cause and consequence, a little bit scare of RB10

  3. Oh…. um were the quotes from Kimi here and Vettel in the previous article slightly massaged? The European drivers always say “do a step”. It’s not correct but I can’t blame them.

  4. I’m sure Alonso is really under pressure now with this slow poke in the same car…

    1. just a first race, too soon to conclude ab the team-mate battle

    2. Ok, so we can also conclude that Ricciardo is at least 5 sec faster than Vettel in raw pace…

      At least Nando has a lot more respect for Kimi than you do. Actually he was quoted last year of stating that Kimi was probably the strongest driver in the field.

      1. agreed wt u, however i really surprise with RB when comparing to their earlier test

      2. I take everything Alonso (and others) say with a grain of salt. If he thinks he can beat Kimi, then he looks great to be beating “the fastest guy”, if there’s any doubt he might not beat him, well, he was beaten by the fastest guy…

        1. Or he has raced with Kimi since 2001, raced for three championships against each others, and holds Kimi highly.

      3. Alonso is the Mourinho of F1.Don’t believe a word he says when he talks about others drivers or teams cause he always seems to have an agenda.

        1. sounds more like you have an agenda with Alonso. he seems pretty genuine to me.

    3. You clearly know nothing of Kimi then

  5. Three world champions knocked out in Q2. I’m keeping an ey

  6. Three world champions knocked out in Q2. I’m keeping an eye on Kimi this year to see how he, as the oldest driver on the grid, adapts to all this newness. He’s only 34, but still… (Speaking as someone way older than that).

    1. Jenson is also 34, b’day in January. So 10 months older…

      1. Aha. Thanks.
        Also knocked out in Q2!

  7. There did seem to be a lot of cars bimbling around at low speed today, even more so in Q1.
    I hope it’s just a temporary situation with the cars and their cooling so new, and not a permanent feature of hybrid power (i.e. they can’t do two flying laps in succession)
    Otherwise we’re in danger of cars flying over the back of each other.

    It would help if drivers came in the pits when they’ve given up, instead of “reducing my speed”…

    1. Is this the 1st time you have watch F1?
      If it is I apologize now, if not, perhaps you need to turn your TV up, as ever since the 1st test the pundits have been saying that you can only harvest half of the energy per lap you can use. So it’s always been expected in qually that it would be 1 flyer then 1 or 2 slower (no kers use, just harvest) then another flyer. The reason many could do 2 conservative flyers in the wet is because they didn’t empty the battery due to going a bot slower because of the rain. This has been very very well covered and documented in the pre-season build up.

  8. At least Räikkönen is honest! Sure, just not quick enough, spin or not.

    So only Räikkönen AND a rookie lost it, but the rookie did good anyway, teehee.

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