"The Bridgestones were like playing on a different field," says David Robertson ( Ed: who sadly passed away in 2014), who co-managed Raikkonen with son Steve. And perhaps trickiest of all was the transition from Michelin to Bridgestone, something that caught out many drivers. There was a limited amount of testing before Melbourne, and a great deal to learn.
Kimi had to wait until January until he was free to drive a red car for the first time. It could all have gone horribly wrong – like it did for Alonso – and the fact it didn't was a reflection of Raikkonen's ability to focus on what really matters.Īlonso had a slight advantage over Raikkonen in that he had a day in a McLaren in December, which accelerated the getting-to-know-each-other process. Raikkonen was also up against a teammate who not only had a year's head start, but enjoyed a special relationship with the team boss. In addition, the departure of Ross Brawn meant he was joining a team that was under serious pressure to maintain its equilibrium, and had also lost the advantages conferred by its special relationship with Bridgestone. Moving to McLaren from Renault, the team he'd grown up with, Alonso faced similar challenges.īut Raikkonen undoubtedly had the more difficult job, for he was also filling the shoes of Michael Schumacher. Raikkonen had, after all, spent five full seasons at McLaren, and was used to the Woking team's systems and way of doing things. It's easy to overlook how much is involved when a frontrunning driver changes teams. And a few laps into that race, when he languished at the back after a disastrous strategy gamble by the team, he was staring at a title-losing 23-point deficit. It's hard to believe now that he was as much as 17 points behind Hamilton at the end of the Japanese Grand Prix, with only 20 up for grabs over the final two races. Yet once everything clicked, Raikkonen was more often than not the man to beat, a position that was obscured by the headline-grabbing battle between McLaren teammates Lewis Hamilton and Fernando Alonso. It was followed by a series of frustrating races that even led some to speculate his future with the team was in doubt.
This was an extraordinary season for the Finn that began with an oh-so-easy victory in Australia that proved to be a false dawn.
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