More fuel means the car will slip more, that is, laptimes at the limit will be slower.

One thinks Ferrari always had the best strategists. One also thinks Kimi is just struggling with a car, this year, that doesn't suit his driving style.

Kimi needs to improve his qualifying speed and his starts. Period.

Last race in Q2 Kimi was more than 3 tenths slower than Massa. And at the start he let Kova slip past, which basically was it. Didn't happen the first time this year.

I wish Kimi would be doing better, but right now he reminds me more of DC in 2003 (struggling in qual and compensating by running heavier fuel loads) than being the reigning champ.

Ferrari needs a better #2 driver right now. Kimi is looking worse than Barri.

I forgot, did Barri ever win a WDC?

Have a look at F1 Engineer's post 17 in this thread, it explains it very well.

Kimi's qualifying problem is, as I understand it, that whilst the theoretical gain of 1 less lap of fuel may (to take a random example) be 0.1s, Kimi is not able to gain that 0.1s. So talk of "fuel corrected qualifying" and "put Kimi on less fuel and he will get pole" just doesn't work.

Now either the above is true or Ferrari and Kimi (who does have the final say on strategy decisions, the only limitation being he cannot pick the same lap as Felipe if Felipe is the quicker Q2 driver) are too stupid to realise less fuel = Kimi pole. Personally I'm more willing to believe that Ferrari and Kimi know what they are doing and that Kimi's problems in Q, as described above, are real.

I think Ferrari experimented with that in free practice in Valencia. Guess it didn't work as they didn't implement it in the race.

There has been nothing wrong with Kimi's starts when he's had the chance to start from the cleaner side. He has had the misfortune of qualifying on the dirty side on two extremely dusty tracks (Hungaroring and Valencia) in a row.

Of course heavier car will lead both to lower qualifying speed and worse acceleration at the start. That's how load works. But of course, there's always room for improvement.

Kimi has always been a get-in-and-drive-it type of driver, not technical at all, he's paired with Chris Dyer who was with the ultra-technical Michael Schumacher all those years, I can't help wondering if that has something to do with it.

Not to suggest it's Dyer's "fault", but possibly the approach he learned with MS is not the right one now he's with Kimi.

I feel Kimi is still exceptionally fast, but they have to give him the right car, and the first guy with that job is his race engineer. Maybe they should try a change.

In defence of Chris, I do recall him saying in an interview last year that when Kimi came to Ferrari they all had to learn new ways of working because what worked with Michael was not remotely the same as the way Kimi worked. I don't think its through lack of trying on the part of his race engineer and team.

I can't find the exact interview, but it is alluded to here:

http://www.topgear.com/content/features/st...ories/15/1.html

That's a good read.

I didn't mean to sound critical of Dyer at all, or suggest it's lack of effort. Or even to actually know very much about the inner workings at Ferrari. But there's a chemistry between any two people, and if Dyer/Shumacher was good, then because Kimi is so different...

Just a thought anyway, for example to try and get Mark Slade, his old RE, over from McLaren for next year?

Like others here I don't think it's a strategy issue, it's a car/setup issue. One that Kimi isn't going to solve by himself, or with Dyer by the look of it

No he didn't. But he managed to qualify and finish ahead of 4th, what Kimi is having a hard time to do *NOW*. That's what makes him look bad.

Replacing Ross was never going to be easy. Ready made replacements, for a lot of positions in F1, do not grow on trees, people have to be allowed to grow into the job. Ross was an absolute master and comparing him with his replacement at Ferrari is understandable, but unfair.

No he wouldn't.

Take Valencia.

The problem with his qualifying is not the weight of the car but getting best use out of the tyres over 1 lap, so the 'each lap of fuel burn is worth 0.2 sec' is not strictly true in Kimis case - he wouldn't necessarily go quicker - and even if it were he's not GUARANTEED pole. And, even if he did land on pole with 5 laps less fuel, he might NOT break away from the pack because his race pace was poor on like-for-like comparison so Kimi would have faced the prospect of being jumped by a good 1/2 dozen cars at the first stops and then having to run the middle stint heavy. And if he hadn't qualified on pole with 5 laps less fuel, he'd have been in for a very dire afternoon indeed. And then if the pace car had come out early....

Despite the course of logic you beleive in, Kimis option gave the best defensive strategy to bring home decent points.

If I am wrong, Kimi would have qualified lighter. There is no way Kimi would not have run the best strategy available to him.

Ross doesn't exactly look like a master tactician at Honda. Why? Strategies are only as good as the driver executing them.

Really don't want to bash Kimi, but I'm not satisfied with explanations given from the 2 of you.
Well others didn't lose track position despite being on the dirty side as well.
Why is he slower in Q2, which is basically where everybody has very low fuel?

It seems to be a common myth nowadays that Kimi wouldn't be faster with less fuel. It's based on nothing.

Kimi is faster in the races with less fuel just like everybody else. He's much faster with an almost empty tank in Q1 and Q2 just like everybody else. He's been faster in Q3 when he has had less fuel just like everybody else.

He would have better grid positions with less fuel just like everybody else.



It wouldn't have to be pole every time. The key is to avoid being behind BMWs, Toyotas and Renaults.

Haven't you watched the races? The dirty side has been quite bad this year for everybody.

Yes, Kimi is slow in qualifying. Probably because of the loose front end of the Ferrari. That's exactly why he should compensate it with less fuel.

Race pace where the tyres are up to temperature and working nicely on long stints isn't the problem though, its the one lap performance needed for qualifying to be in a good position on the grid to start with. Time and again Kimi has proved that in race conditions he can do fastest lap because he can get the tyres up to temp and working nicely....but not in qualy conditions.

If you can't get enough heat in the tyres in qualy it is already compromising your race and strategy. Having a heavier fuel load will make the tyres work more aggressively, but it is a trade off.

Kimi was not stuck behind neither of those cars. He was stuck behind McLaren which was slower than BMW.

Yes, he should avoid being behind Heikki too. Unfortunately.

And still the lap time is slower. Having 5 laps less fuel is always faster.

Hamilton lost a position in Valencia? Or Trulli? No. So it''s possible to not lose position. At Hungaroring there it was more of an issue. Anyway, when Kimi himself says he needs to improve his qualifying, is it really helpful to find all kinds of excuses?.

Agreed. The point I was trying to make is that Ferrari had a very special team together, going right from factory to race track and when these people are no longer there it is not a straightforward or easy job replace them.

Not if you can't get the tyres working to temperature it isn't. It is not as simple as "fuel him light" as you think it is unfortunately.

Kimi himself has stated he finds the handling of the car better on a heavier fuel load.

Where do you see excuses? Kimi has problems in qualifying what's the excuse in acknowledging that? It's his and his engineers responsibility to solve those problems.

The excuses start with the thread title. This is another surreal thread brought to you by mikra10. It doesn't matter what Ferrari engineers say, it doesn't matter what the Bridgestone engineer say, it doesn't even matter what Kimi himself say. Somebody at Ferrari(the strategist) is screwing Kimi.

This thread reminds me of last year. In the beginning of the season Kimi was doing poor starts, loosing positions left and right while Massa was doing just fine. What was Kimi's fans reaction ? They demanded that Ferrari improve their launch control system.

Nothing new here the same old excuses factory.

Learning to drive would seem like such an easy solution to Kimi's qualifying woes that I'm sure he and his crew have already thought of that. I'm thinking it may be one of those things that are easier said than done, and that's why a more creative approach may be necessary, e.g. tinkering with fuel loads. Just because it's all Kimi's own fault doesn't mean it's necessarily the brightest of ideas to keep illustrating Einstein's definition of insanity from here to eternity.

This discussion is going to be endless...

Whoever likes Kimi will keep on saying that Ferrari is offereing him 2nd class service and that the extra fuel that he's been carrying will always slow him in qual and won't make him use his fast race pace as by lap 20 he's 20-30 seconds behind Massa and Hamilton.

Whoever doesn't like Kimi will keep on saying that he's underperforming and that Ferrari should bring Barrichello back as he would do a better job supporting Massa than Kimi is doing at the moment.

I won't take any part on this discussion as guys like Odvan will bash me, but I would like to prsent some points.

1- Extra fuel makes you slower (on the paper). But a driver might not as slow as preditcted. For instance, let's say that an extra lap of fuel means you are 0.1 slower. Depending on the driver, this could be just 0.08-0.09 or maybe 0.12-0.13. This will certainly have a point on your strategy.

2- Extra fuel does mean that your tyres will heat up earlier. It's simple. Each lap of fuel will bring you an extra 0.5% extra weight. How this influences tyre warm-up and usage will depend on many parameters including driving style, chassis characteristics, engine driveability, track temperature etc.

3- Ferrari operates as Massa explained. They give a range of laps for each driver for the 1st stop. Whoever is fastest on Q2 (or has the best lap of Q1 and Q2 combined) chooses his lap firstly. Even if Kimi is slower than Massa and Massa chooses the earliest lap from the fuel range, Kimi has still got the option of being 1 lap heavier other than being 3-4.

4- Ferrari has its operating characteristics and it's not up to us to say who's right or wrong. That's the way they've been doing and they've got at least 70% of the last WDC's and WCC's. If they think that Q1+Q2 performance is a good way to determine the driver's strategy that it's a good way and period. It's not because Odvan wants it to be different that they will change their way.

5- And finally: Ferrari has two drivers, not one. And this is not Kimi Raikkonen Racing. And Massa has been recently performing better than Raikkonen, has more points on the WDC and has the momentum. Is it fair to handicap Massa just in order to see if Raikkonen can make what he hasn't been able to do(or to make the AtlasF1 Kimi fanboys happy)?

You're confusing all the detailed science of tyres in qualifying conditions versus race conditions, its completely different.

Its far from an Einstein theory to think anyone slow should qualify light. It actually makes the problem WORSE as starting artificially forward on the grid with a compromised race strategy is about as stupid as it gets.

And still he is always faster when lighter. Like everybody else.

He's crap when he is heavy. He's crap when he is light. Light crap is faster than heavy crap.


He says his car is handling better when heavy. So compared to other cars it is better. A light Kimi is still faster than a heavy Kimi.


Kimi is typically about 1.5-2 seconds faster in Q2 than in Q3. Do you think there is a magic step somewhere where he is suddenly much faster? Do you think that 20 or 15 laps of fuel is just as fast, but somewhere around 10 laps of fuel he is suddenly more than a second faster?

If that is the case, he should only take 10 laps of fuel and make a 10 s gap during the first 10 laps. It would still be better than driving behind slower cars the first 20 laps. He would be in the same place after 10 laps but with a full tank.

F1 should be about taking risks, it should not be about playing it safe.

On the contrary, I'm saying his race pace is good but his quali pace is not. That's why he should qualify light.

"Anyone slow". Are you talking about the guy who has done the fastest laps in most races?

If Kimi had qualified with 5 laps less fuel in Valencia and (highly debatable) managed to qualify on pole and (highly debatable) he had managed to get to the first corner first, the chances are that (from evidence) his slower race pace would not have allowed him to break away from Massa who would have then not broken Lewis and probably Kubica would have tagged on. Then Kimi would have stopped a few laps before these other guys and been jumped in the first stop. Then Kimi would have run the 2nd stint much heavier and we KNOW he was slow in that stint, marginally lighter. So I could well forsee another car or two getting past in the second stop.

I am pretty certain that Kimi ran the best strategy available from the data they had in practice.

I'm not quite sure why everybody is pointing at Kimi's fastest laps towards the end of the race indicating that he has better race pace than anyone else. Firstly an average is better than the fastest and secondly if he qualifies heavy then he's going to have lighter stints than his competition towards the end and have more opportunity to set fastest laps when combined with more rubber on the track. After all Nick Heidfeld setting the fastest lap in Hockenheim didn't mean that he had the fastest race pace overall.

Valencia is a bad example, because Kimi's engine had been tuned down and it exploded anyway.

Still, if he had had a little less fuel, he would have been at least 3rd in the clean side. He would have retired from 3rd position.

Kimi is usually fast when he is in free air. He's just been driving behind other people almost all the time. Specially in the beginning of races. In the end he is fast, but it's too late then.

Well, clearly that wasn't what I was suggesting. The Einstein thing was a reference to his famous definition of insanity as repeating and action over and over again and expecting a different outcome. In this particular case, when a strategy fails time and time again, maybe it's time to think outside of the box and try something different instead of stubbornly sticking to something you already know is only going to fail.

You say Kimi is slow, and he may well be, but he routinely gets stuck behind drivers who are even slower and that ends up costing him time and finishing positions. Getting him ahead of these people on the grid would at least offer him a chance to make use of his race pace which tends to be relatively better than his qualifying pace. That would be better than the current situation where his race is basically screwed from the word go unless he can jump cars at the start. Which he usually can't.

Have Ferrari confirmed this? Or anyone else even?

Amen.

Well I think people assume that getting Kimi ahead of those others on the grid would require an impossibly low level of fuel to work as a race strategy. A theory Pikku has described as coming out of thin air but a theory that comes from Kimi's self confessed qualifying problems and the fact that, if the solution were as easy as you say, Kimi and Ferrari would have to be (as you suggest) insane to continue as they are.

We hear a lot that Kimi's "fuel adjusted" qualifying pace isn't bad. Well, if it isn't bad, why does he have qualifying problems? I'd guess it's because he can't achieve the fantasy fuel adjusted times attributed to him, so is forced to carry a fuel load that puts him lower down on the grid than he is.

I may be wrong, but if the solution is just to fuel him very light then I think it will be one of the biggest "D'Oh" moments for Kimi and Ferrari by not implementing it sooner in recent F1.

They never confirm such things. The Finnish "insiders" have talked about it in TV. I can't find a source though, except BB messages.

It is confirmed that they knew about the conrod issue before the race, so they would be stupid if they didn't do anything.

It is bad. That's why he should try something else.

Perhaps Kimi just stubbornly wants to have more fuel. It worked before so he thinks it will work again.

I think so he will just do his best and lets see what happens in the race I think so.

I just can't imagine that they didn't try that route on fridays or at least in testing.

Stubborness might be Kimi's reason, but the team has all the data and ought to know better.

He would at best have qualified 11th, which would have given him 0 points.

Ron's strategists brainwashed him?