Why Raikkonen can win races in 2012

Kimi was two years away from F1? Really? When? 

We're just two race weekends into the 2012 season, and it is already becoming clear that Kimi Raikkonen's return is going to be successful. After a one-off Albert Park and a mixed conditions Sepang, we know that McLaren are currently the pace setters, while the rest of the pack follows. Red Bull are not strong enough in qualifying, Mercedes have severe tyre degradation issues, Fernando Alonso surprisingly leads the championship with a prancing horse that's more similar to a donkey, and Sauber already have 30 points in the bag. Perhaps somebody is missing something that's clearly under the radar.

Kimi Raikkonen hasn't had the best of luck in the first two races of the season. In Q1 of Australia, a late helmet change hampered his chances of correcting a simple mistake on his flying lap as he ran out of time to make it into Q2. Nevertheless, he bounced back with a feisty race performance to finish 7th after starting only 17th.

Qualifying 5th in Malaysia, with merely 0.242 seconds off Hamilton's pole was a clear indication that he was ultimately on the pace. "If I hadn't made a mistake in Turn 9, pole would've have been possible, as I lost only a few tenths. These things sometimes happen. It is what it is", Kimi explained.


His starting position was later denied by the stewards who handed him a five place grid penalty after a late gearbox change was necessary. Starting 10th, without any experience on the wet and intermediate tyres, Raikkonen tiptoed to 5th, and towards the end, nobody was faster than him on the track. On a set of Pirelli primes, he lapped three tenths quicker than anyone else. He immediately boosted a fastest lap time, reminiscent of his 2008 campaign where he was leading the fastest lap times in almost every race of the season.

In pre-season testing, trackside operations director, Alan Permane, was highly impressed with the Finn's first run in an F1 car without refuelling as Raikkonen immediately adapted to 150kg of fuel load.

“We went from 30 to 160kg to show him the sort of difference he could expect, although from qualifying to race it’s even bigger than that. We calculated the time difference from fuel effect and his first lap was absolutely spot on that difference. That was impressive, then he did another 20 laps with just the expected 0.1s per lap tyre degradation. He certainly impressed me from day one.”

Raikkonen has never been a fan of F1′s peripheral stuff, the media and PR side, even if it does pay the bucks. “He just wants to get in the car, drive it fast, work with the engineers and drive it faster,” his race engineer, Mark Slade says. “The rest of it he just sees as an annoyance and a distraction."

Already on Friday morning you could see that Raikkonen's long-runs were beautifully consistent and he was just behind Sebastian Vettel in terms of lap times.

“I think his Friday pace was far below what we can actually achieve", as a confident Mark Slade explains. Again, that pace was masked in qualifying by a five-place grid penalty for a changed gearbox, and then mixed race conditions.

Sebastian Vettel mentioned after Sunday's race that he was not at all surprised by Kimi's pace. "We know the Lotus is good, and is currently a big threat. Especially under Kimi's hands." 

Red Bull's team boss, Christian Horner, apparently agrees. "I think that Kimi has been fast all the time. He was totally blindingly fast in Q2. The power relations seem to change with such a speed, which makes this so interesting. It's good for the sport to see this many competitive drivers", Horner thought.

Former McLaren reserve driver, and current driver for HRT, Pedro De la Rosa, has had a chance to work with Raikkonen before and his words were full of praise after Kimi's recent performances. "Kimi is a phenomenal talent and without a doubt one of the greatest drivers I have ever seen. Kimi and his team looked very competitive this weekend. My uncomplimentary prediction is that Kimi with his team is going to be the biggest surprise of the season", De la Rosa noted. 

Kimi Raikkonen leads Red Bull's Mark Webber

One thing is for certain. Come dry conditions and a trouble-free weekend for the Finn, and current pace setters would be advised to include Kimi Raikkonen in their calculations. Lotus has the pace, and apparently so does the Finn, and with a hopefully stronger development process than last year, the team have every opportunity to clinch a win or two this year. Nevertheless, don't make the mistake to bet against Raikkonen.