Kimi Räikkönen’s Blog

Ciao Ferrari!

Three years with Ferrari came and went. It was a fabulous time.

My dream came true the first time when we won the championship. We started well at the second time and were third in the final points. About this time there is a little in my toothole because we would have wanted to race for the championship but weren’t able to do so at any point. At least there were a few races that made me happy.

I will have only good memories of the team and got some friends forever from there. Thank you to all of them. Ciao Ferrari!

The season and my job-time with the team ended in Abu Dhabi. It wasn’t much of a race. We didn’t get anywhere on the technical track with our car. And as a track it didn’t really fire me up at all. These modern tracks don’t seem to be my thing. I dig a lot the old lanes. There’s a good thing going on on those tracks. These new just don’t offer the same feeling to really really race.

We already knew when going there that Yas Marina is going to be as tricky to us as Singapore was. The more curves, the more our car loses time. We were almost in Q3 in quali. 11th position was a good result. We lost one place in the start and stayed there too.

The gang probably asks what we do next year. I think we can at some point tell what we have decided. I can say that much that the motivation hasn’t gone anywhere. Racing interests me as much as it did when I was a kid. Racing is everything!

But now I’m going to keep a short vacation. The season was hard and we knew it already before we started to race when we were so much behind the lead. Fortunately we at least won in Spa. That is the highlight of this season and the only thing that stays in my mind.

F1 is going through a tough change. The regulations will change again. Let’s hope that in the future they will be the same for everyone and in a way so that they can’t be understood as you want to.

I’m preparing for the next season like before. First I take in some oxygen and then I’ll keep the touch alive. Let’s wait and see where we drive. Thank you to all the fans and mates who have supported me. The fight goes on!

First of all I want to congratulate Jenson for winning the Championship: I know how he’s felling right now… He had a great start of the season, winning six out of seven races, while the second part was pretty difficult for him. But a Championship is decided by the points you gain as of March and he gained more than anybody else.

Unfortunately in the first part of the race I was stuck for a long time behind Grosjean: when he stopped I had a free track. All in all the sixth place is a good result, considering what had happened. Although I don’t like the fact that we lost points to McLaren in a race where they started behind us. Now we’re one point behind in the standings: everything can happen in Abu Dhabi and we’ll give it everything to regain the third place.
From Ferrari.com

First of all I want to congratulate Jenson for winning the Championship: I know how he’s felling right now… He had a great start of the season, winning six out of seven races, while the second part was pretty difficult for him. But a Championship is decided by the points you gain as of March and he gained more than anybody else.

Unfortunately in the first part of the race I was stuck for a long time behind Grosjean: when he stopped I had a free track. All in all the sixth place is a good result, considering what had happened. Although I don’t like the fact that we lost points to McLaren in a race where they started behind us. Now we’re one point behind in the standings: everything can happen in Abu Dhabi and we’ll give it everything to regain the third place.
From Ferrari.com

First of all I want to congratulate Jenson for winning the Championship: I know how he’s felling right now… He had a great start of the season, winning six out of seven races, while the second part was pretty difficult for him. But a Championship is decided by the points you gain as of March and he gained more than anybody else.

Unfortunately in the first part of the race I was stuck for a long time behind Grosjean: when he stopped I had a free track. All in all the sixth place is a good result, considering what had happened. Although I don’t like the fact that we lost points to McLaren in a race where they started behind us. Now we’re one point behind in the standings: everything can happen in Abu Dhabi and we’ll give it everything to regain the third place.

The season is taking it’s last breaths and for us it’s race by race more difficult to achieve anything. The gadgets have been what they have been for the last months and you just have to try and fight for the best possible performance to the team with them.

In Suzuka everything went well and we came in 4th. Let’s hope that there would be good points to take from Brazil even though the gadgets aren’t galloping the way they should.

Interlagos is kind of a bumpy and dirty circuit. It’s a totally shabby place but for me it’s totally number one when we won the championship there the way we did. It’s always cool to go there. Ferrari has always been fast there.

The track requires downforce and a stable car when braking. An important place is the rise uphill to the finish line. KERS will be a big advantage there for sure.

We can’t do anything else than try to grab the third place in WCC. The goal is that we can keep the serie bundled up until the last race.

Soon I’ll be 30 using Reetu’s words. I haven’t got the time to party during the weekend. If I’m really optimistic, it would be great to first get a qualifying from where I could fight for the prizes in the race. Although it would mean that some opponents don’t get everything in place.

As for my continuance everything is still open. I haven’t made any decisions. I’m looking at the situation and watching how things proceed. I would have the eagerness to go flat out but the gadgets just have to be in such a stitch that you can go flat out and have a chance to win.

I think we’ll get some information out in a few weeks.

Different League in Suzuka

Our result in Japan was okay - if you like 4th positions. I don’t think our car would have gone any faster but it’s just that I dig winning so much that I just don’t have the energy to be really enthusiastic about other positions.

After Singapore we at least got to play in a different league. Suzuka is a place where it’s always cool to race. When the car hasn’t been developed in ages you don’t just all of a sudden drive for victory but it’s good that you’re at least able to fight for good points.

After quali we thought about what rubbers to wear in the start. We took the hard tyres because we weren’t sure about the soft ones. That’s why the start was kind of sticky and I got so much behind the lead in the first stint.

After the stop the soft rubber worked well. Then it was good to drive. We just put our head down and caught Heidfeld. When the BMW’s rear started to show we knew that we will get the 4th place.

Our pitcrew worked fantastically. It was a 10 points stop and that’s why we were 4th. And that was all we could achieve. The rest of the race we just drove to keep us warm.

We caught Hamilton with the safety car but didn’t have any chances against his speed on the straight. I went to take a peek one time but that was it. When you can’t even drive behind you can’t for sure get by him.

As a track Suzuka is one of those good old places where the demands are always in the right places. You can’t screw up there. Otherwise you are immediately painfully out. That’s how it should be too, you pay for your mistakes. On new tracks it’s just a small slap on the wrist when you can always come back.

In Suzuka you stay in the wall.

I will never get used to the enormous fan-thing in Japan and China. They stand there in the bushes staring with their eyes out of their for hours and suddenly when you walk by they jump at you with a big bunch. It’s totally fanatic. Luckily I came in 4th so that the fans could get some good feelings for that.

Now we go to Brazil via home.

I’m glad we’re going to Singapore. It’s a fantastic city, I like the food and I don’t mind that we race in the evening. Furthermore it’s another city circuit and the slower the circuits are this year the better we were, just look at Valencia and Monaco: there’s no reason, why it shouldn’t be the same in Singapore.

I think that out of the four remaining races the one in Singapore suits Ferrari the best. If we want to win we need to be more than perfect and need a little bit of luck. But after the win in Spa it would be fantastic to have this feeling once again.

Points Only After The Chequered Flag

It required a long job from the team so that we got our car into a good balance. Now it has been cool to drive it. As a reward we have now got five good races as foundation. It isn’t the fastest of all but you can drive into good positions with it. That’s what counts most.

Okay, of course we got to the podium by a little luck in Monza but that’s how it goes, even the small kids are taught that first you have to finish. The points will be given out only after the chequered flag.

A racing driver always drives for a victory. I can understand how Hamilton must have felt when he couldn’t stay on the track but these things just happen in these circles, sometimes to one, sometimes to another one. We finished and came in third. That was an important thing for the team’s WCC.

I had really good feelings after Monza and it was great to drive home from there. It’s good to continue to the next races from here.

In Monza almost everything fell in place. In quali we got one of the best laps this season and the start from the line hit well but then because of Hamilton I had to ease a bit. Fortunately we got past Sutil and it really decided that it was us on the podium.

It’s a weird team to look at from the mirrors all the time. I was looking at them in Spa and I was looking at them in Monza, having Force India right in my back. But it’s better to see it from the mirror than to see it from behind.

With a hard work Sutil was under control until the end.

The best feelings were at the podium. I can’t even describe it in words when I saw how fired up the Ferrari-fans were. The are really fanatic fans and they can appreciate it when we were able to give our best in that race.

The battle continues in Singapore. I can’t promise you anything from there because you only see in the practice how our car fits there. But neither Monaco or Valencia was the end of the world to us. The car seems to fit street circuits and let’s hope that the same continues in Singapore.

A couple of the last races have been on my shoulder so that we get points. We are fighting for the 3rd place in the WCC and let’s hope that Fisichella can also drive for points. It’s going to get tough when the others are still developing their car while we have the same car you’ve seen in the last races also.

Six revolts left. The pace in the last races has been good but there’s still empty spaces left in my trophy shelf at home. I could easily squeeze in a couple more.

We found a good marching pace in Hungary and Valencia and thanks to that we are still in the games.

 

 

 

Finally we’re getting back to the track! This year the summer break was longer than usual and I had the possibility to recharge my batteries for the last part of the season. The first week of the break I dedicated to the Finland Rally, which was an experience I really enjoyed a lot, despite the outcome. It was really fun driving at the max in the Rally in my home country, seeing so many Ferrari fans there. Then I spent some time with my family and my best friends, doing some sport to keep me fit.

I’ll have a new teammate at Valencia. Instead of Felipe – and I want to wish him all the best for a speedy recovery again – there will be Luca Badoer. He has been the official Scuderia test driver for many years, and I’m glad that he finally got the chance to race a Ferrari. I really wish him good luck and I’m sure that we’ll work well together.

We got a good result in Hungary, which allowed us to climb back on the third place in the Constructors’ Championship. This is the Team’s realistic goal for the final part of the season. For myself I hope to win at least one race, after a third place in Monaco and a second at Budapest. In Hungary we seemed to be back to the duels we saw over the last two years, Ferrari vs. McLaren, but I don’t think that this will be the case at the European GP. We’re racing on a city circuit at Valencia, but with very different characteristics compared to the others and compared to Budapest, which is the fastest of them. This year we did quite well on tracks like this, just look at Melbourne - where I could have finished on the podium - Monaco and Budapest.

Last year I didn’t end the race at Valencia caused by an engine failure. So this year I want to return and maybe even gain a place on the podium. This is our realistic goal, although we know that it will be difficult. The qualifying will be fundamental: it will be important to start from one of the front rows, maybe even from the clean side of the track. It’s really a disadvantage when you have to start from the dirty side of the grid on this track, because it’s never used during the rest of the year. It’ll also be important to have constant performance throughout the race: it’s easy to loose time with little mishaps. I’m expecting extremely high temperatures and humidity, which will make it all even more difficult for us during the weekend.

First of all, it’s great to hear good news from the hospital in Budapest. Felipe is getting better quickly and let’s wish him zemi for his recovery period. Felipe is in good hands. Let’s hope that he gets back to drive soon.

It was a mean accident, something that could have happened to anyone and it was a very difficult weekend for the whole team. At first we didn’t even know what caused it. It still has to be accepted that in this business you have a high speed and that’s why you also have high risks. It’s part of this sport and when you go to the lane yourself you just have to forget about it.

In the final games the 2nd position was a good result and the team got something a bit more positive to think about. We went forward again. For me it was the 5th trophy from Hungary. Sometimes some tracks just are great and some aren’t - like those German places are for me.

In the race the car felt good. The balance was ok and I could go flat out with both rubbers. The warm weather suits our car. Our ride took us to the podium as we expected too but it wasn’t enough so that we could challenge for the victory.

After Hungary the break starts but the season is still long and it has it’s share of challenges when we try to keep the 3rd position in the manufacturer’s serie which we reached on Sunday. We will try and take more trophies in the autumn too but it’s tricky when everybody develops their cars.

The goal is to win one race. You never know beforehand what kind of circumstances there will be in each race.

Now I have totally different things than F1 on my mind. I’m about to make a long dream come true. I will drive WRC-rally and with a really good feeling with a big support in my homeland.

It’s cool to get to enjoy Finland’s legendary rally paths. I will enjoy and take everything possible out of it. I have no other goal than to finish the rally on Sunday. This is a totally different thing than F1 when the road keeps on changing all the time and when you drive against time.

After the rally my real vacation begins. I’m going to enjoy Finland’s summer with family and friends. Barbeque and sport. After that it is back to business again!