Kimi's problems yesterday...

I spoke to my Dad who's in Europe; he watched the race on RAI. He said the commentators were saying that LH's car laid down oil at the start which contributed to KR's poor start. Also, KR's first set of tires were not good, which is why he lost so much time stuck behind HK. KR was pretty upbeat about his car's performance; he did have the fastest lap of the race. Is this wishful thinking by the Italian media?

 

yes

 

I think it is, although Alonso's driving suit looked pretty dirty during the post race conference and I don't think it was brake dust.

 

I thought Kimi was looking pretty good. I was sitting at turn one and it sounded to me like he was braking later and on the power earlier than Massa. I didn't see him near the McLaren's so I can't compare him to them, but I'm assuming he was about on par with them. Possibly the Kimi of old is back? Hopefully the Silverstone testing goes well. I think we'll start to see more of Kimi soon.

He almost passed Massa between turns 4 and 6, but Massa shut the door. I wish he would have let him by so Kimi could have chased down the McLaren's.

Also, Kimi was 3 laps heavier than Lewis and Massa on fuel. They always seem to load Kimi up heavier than Massa and the Mclarens. They need to try different strategies, and let Kimi be the lighter car. Then he may snatch more P1's.

But I've also noticed that after the first race, Kimi has dropped at least one position before the first turn. That seems wrong to me. He needs to work on that.

Oh well, this probably isn't Ferrari's year, but I hope to see Kimi in at least 3rd spot for the WDC. Maybe McLaren will fall on some bad luck and Ferrari will come out on top. Who knows. I just can't wait for the next race to see if Kimi is really back and finally found a good setup for the car.

 

Not sure about the oil, as Hamilton was on the other side of the track.

But everybody had trouble with the hard compounds. It wasn't quite as obvious elsewhere, because Massa and the McLarens ran "soft-soft-hard", Kovi and Nick ran "soft-hard-soft", while Kimi tried "hard-soft-soft" ... which is why he was waxing Massa's tail at the end, when Massa was on hards and Kimi was on soft.

I was wondering about Massa letting Kimi by -- but by then the McLarens were out of reach, so it was intramural at that point. Good work by Massa holding off Kimi. (Look how easily Kimi dusted off Kovi and Nick, when they were on hards in the second stint -- after getting blown off on the start by them when they were on softs and he was on hards).

Kimi's starts have been pretty irregular. He had a good start at Monaco, but hasn't done so well from P3 or 4 on the grid. But he had an excuse at Indy.

I really don't like this having to use both compounds in a race rule. It just adds random course hazards. Bernie ought to let the cars race, and stop playing "reality tv producer". Or go focus on making another "date a bogus millionaire" show.)

 

What we need are a few McLaren DNFs to even things out, but it seems like they are bullet-proof for the moment.

In some ways, not having a clear #1 driver on both squads makes the WC strategy a bit difficult to determine. If Kimi wakes up (and I think/hope he will because I believe he's an inherently faster driver than Massa) we might have a two-way fight between him and LH. I'm not discounting FA, but at some point both teams are going to have to focus on one driver for the WC. Right now LH has that ten point lead, and unless a mechanical failure allows FA to catch up, (the points system won't) he is their WC contender.