Raikkonen puzzled by “bad lap” in Q3

2015 Chinese Grand Prix

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Kimi Raikkonen said he is unsure what went wrong with his final lap in Q3 after being out-qualified by the two Williams drivers.

“The car was pretty poor in the first sector, I don’t know why,” Raikkonen told his team on the radio during qualifying. “The rear was just sliding all over the place.”

After the session he told reporters: “I just had a bad lap for some reason on the last set.”

“The first three corners felt very slippery in the rear and obviously the lap time was gone already so I was just trying to make the best out of it.”

Raikkonen said he was “disappointed” with his lap which has left him sixth on the grid for tomorrow’s race.

“We have what we have and it’s quite a good package but we keep having small mistakes here and there so it doesn’t help.”

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    Keith Collantine
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    41 comments on “Raikkonen puzzled by “bad lap” in Q3”

    1. Kimi was my favourite driver from 2002 until 2009, when he retired. But he is letting me down over and over again. Especially during the most important moments.

      Fernando wiped the floor with Kimi last year and that was the moment I became really dissapointed with him. Vettel is doing something similar this year, even though the car is way more to Kimi’s liking this year.

      That’s probably why my favourite driver from 2010 is Vettel.

      1. so its his fault why the handling of the car changed on him and the traffic issues he encountered?! man u sound so asinine!

        then go cheer for Vettel(just stay off the Raikkonen band wagon!!).

      2. and also u can see and hear Vettel is much more detailed in his knowledge about the car and how he wants it according to his driving style. Kimi is not that way…

        1. So, it’s Kimi’s problem, that he’s not as detailed about his car. You said it yourself.

          He always seems as if the victim of bad luck. Is he cursed? I don’t think so. The best drivers creat their own luck. Kimi doesn’t.

      3. Bandwagon!

    2. Kimi’s problem is he’s not an “iceman” when the heat is on. He loses it under pressure. He should have been a few tenths behind Vettel and 4th, but he managed to be slower than Williams.

      1. I agree. Every time it looks like he’s about to have a good session, something happens that spoils it for him. While I’m willing to put some of that down to bad luck, I think the rest is a symptom of his inability to grasp every opportunity in the way that Vettel does time and time again.

        I’ve been a Kimi fan since he made his debut but I hope he makes a graceful exit at the end of this season, hopefully with a few more good results under his belt. I don’t want him to keep being embarrassed.

      2. he was the iceman when he stormed through the field from 18th in Sepang. it mos def was not his fault with the traffic and the handling changing.

        something Ferrari changed with the car and/or tires…

        1. Any source about Ferrari changing his car/tires?

          1. @oletros They changed from used softs to new softs.. just that! They had already enough fuel so it was just a tire pit stop without going into the garage.

            What people are saying (Vettel, James, etc) is that because of a not perfect out lap, the front tires weren’t in the perfect temperature. It could also be wrong pressure or just a mistake. We can’t know for sure…

            1. Yap, but what the OP is implying is that the ones to blame for Kimi’s poor quali is Ferrari, not Kimi

            2. Yeah, I agree with you. I was also trying to explain to him why Kimi just made his luck today, there was no mistake (in what we can see) from Ferrari.

    3. […] but we keep having small mistakes here and there […]

      This sounds more like just an unlucky situation rather than the fault of somebody from the team. But, yeah, I’m sorry for him. Probably the age started to show for him… He’s the oldest driver on the grid anyway.

      1. Age isn’t an excuse. As Button said, the current F1 cars are easy to drive physically. Look at Massa who’s 1.5 years younger than Kimi and showing Bottas(who’s 2 years younger than Vettel) how it’s done.

    4. Yes Kimi, we are puzzled too… Now please just bring the car home tomorrow in 4th to fulfil my prediction.

      1. oh no doubt he’ll have a strong result. Williams is slower than Ferrari, the conditions of the track and car changed on Kimi(I believe something Ferrari changed hoping it would be better).

        im 70/30 that he will finish on the podium.

        1. So he will beat vettel in the race?

          1. I don’t think so as he said:

            I think both Ferraris will be on the podium..

    5. Well! If Kimi can not perform good enough in Qualifying, he will has no chance on the podium at all. At least , he should be faster than his teamate.

    6. Today wasn’t anyone else’s fault, besides his fault! The team asked him in the first run if he wanted something changed and everything was ok… he said yes, it was getting better. So, sorry, but today it was his problem because he couldn’t maybe understand what he needed to feel confident in the car.

      1. @key75 The car’s feel may have changed since he said that.

        1. @davidnotcoulthard Yeah, maybe you’re right maybe not.. we will never know! I also spoke maybe a little too aggressive because I’m just frustrated to see him always in these situations because I really admire his style, so yeah, like him, I’m not happy at all lol

          And I also want to see a good fight between the two like Ham/Ros and Massa/Bottas…. second row tomorrow would be perfect.

    7. He can’t hold the brakes during a pit stop, he can’t qualify reasonably close to Vettel. I’ll tell you what will happen this year, the same thing that happened last year, just with a smaller margin.

      1. I second that.

    8. The two ice-men of the grid, Kimi and Bottas, seem to in fact be the ones who falter under pressure. We saw this multiple times in 2013, 2014 and the first 3 races of 2015

      1. @mashiat Flying Finns would be a better term to collectively describe F1-driving finns.

        1. @davidnotcoulthard I used ice-men because they are the ones who you would expect to keep their cool when the pressure heats up.

          1. @mashiat Hmm……I don’t recall Bottas earning such a reputation (and I thought Kimi got such a nickname because of how he acted after getting poles and winning races for McLaren?)

      2. Both of them had the measure of their teammates in 2013.

        1. Not really. In points maybe, but Grosjean and Maldonado were ahead for a lot of the time. But I’m simply talking about how they perform under pressure here. Raikkonen, for instance, made several mistakes in Quali in @david-a 2013 i.e. Australia, Canada, Korea, Japan. Bottas also made a few. He was on-course for a top 4 grid position but ended up 9th. And not to mention the many times in 2014 i.e. Austria, Russia, Brazil, Abu Dhabi.

    9. I dont think we should read too much into today’s performance . It was just an unlucky bit of Sector 1 for him in the final lap. He admits it and as as he says he needs to get over this twitch in the Qualifying which is compromising his race performance.

      1. its just some hugely asinine and stupid people letting emotions rather than logic speak their minds.

      2. This. ^^

    10. OmarR-Pepper - Vettel 40 victories!!! (@)
      11th April 2015, 15:07

      It is necessary two Ferraris to battle the 2 Mercedes, especially now they are aware how a bad strategy can spoil the party. I hope Ferrari designs a strategy which allows Kimi to recover, at least to beat one of the Williams.
      He could end up on the podium though, especially if my prediction of one Merc not finishing the race gets real.

      1. I think both Ferraris will be on the podium..

    11. why cant the bad luck go to the mercs.

      1. lol the bad luck is not bad luck. Kimi mkes mistakes. He is a seat waster.

    12. It is kind of strange how of the top 3 teams, Ferrari improved the least in Q3. Also puzzling how Williams and Mercedes got that much pace in the last part of the qualifying. I am not sure if the temperature dropped during that period or what but it certainly didn’t seem normal for Ferrari to show very little improvement on the new tires in Q3.

      1. Mercedes have this engine power setting called “strat 1” for Q3 which is simply too powerful for ferrari to handle. They can only use it on Q3 though. Never seen them use it during the race.

    13. Kimi’s season has opened with some bad luck, some of it his own doing and some if it not.
      Hopefully lap 1 will be clean for him tomorrow and we’ll see what he can do with a straight car for the race.
      There are variances in the tyres from set to set, there always will be. Either he didn’t get enough heat into them to start his hot lap, or the pressures were a little off, or he just has a bad tyre or 2.

      At some point somebody else will get the bad luck, it’s usually the way.

    14. I’m no expert, but i’ve watch F1 since 1998, and to me it looked as though the car’s rear was extremely loose in the first sector.

      The first two corners are neverending turns, so you really need rear stability and good traction. He didn’t seem to have those.

      Maybe he was overzealous on the throttle. If that’s the case, fair play, it’s his fault. But something didn’t look quite right mechanically in the balance of that car on said lap.

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