Räikkönen: On the Road to Schumacher’s Record

Kimi Räikkönen’s return to F1 after two seasons in WRC raised some questions. Scalded by a lukewarm comeback two years earlier of the Kaiser Michael Schumacher after three years of absence and by a rally stint marked by several off-road excursions despite a speed praised by his peers, not many believed in the return of the Flying Finn to Formula 1.

His return to the track prompted various mixed comments from his former colleagues, illustrating this lukewarm interlude, like his compatriot Hirvonen: “They [Editor’s note: Räikkönen’s Citroën engineers] told me he was one of the fastest drivers. His problems weren’t with his steering but rather with his note-taking. He should have continued in WRC.” Or from the nine-time WRC world champion Sébastien Loeb: “Kimi was immediately very fast, but later on, he plateaued.”

To make matters worse, he was returning to F1 with a team that had just regained independence at the dawn of the 2012 season after losing its star driver, Polish Robert Kubica, in a terrible rally accident the previous year. Although equipped with a promising car during the 2012 winter tests, the team remembered the indecisions of the past twelve months, paying the price for the bold gamble of reversed exhausts exiting at the front of the sidepods.

And yet, after two points finishes in the first two races and a non-points finish in China (betrayed by his tires at the end of the race), he has not left the points since 23 Grand Prix, to the point of being about to equal Schumacher’s record of 24 consecutive points finishes this weekend in Montreal. Over these same 23 Grand Prix, he has scored 277 points, ranking him third behind Vettel (360), Alonso (319), and ahead of Hamilton and Button by 70 and 107 points, respectively. Although he may not have attracted as much spotlight as the fraternal duo Vettel/Alonso, this statistic nonetheless shows the consistency and performance of the least talkative Finn on the grid.

In his time, Michael Schumacher achieved this series of 24 points finishes spanning three (then shorter) seasons between the Hungarian Grand Prix in 2001 and the Malaysian Grand Prix in 2003. The Red Baron’s feat remains respectable since back then, only the top six scored points, whereas today, since the return of Iceman, ten do so. For the record, if the Finn had made his comeback under a scoring system similar to the “Schumacher era,” his best “streak” would only have been a series of nine consecutive points finishes, between the European and Korean Grand Prix in 2012.

To achieve this score of 23, embellished with an unexpected (although declared as the main objective of the season by Eric Boullier) victory in Abu Dhabi in 2012 and another more anticipated in Melbourne 2013, Räikkönen had to push himself, as recently as last weekend in Monaco! When his collision at the “Nouvelle Chicane” at the tunnel exit with Sergio Perez on lap 69 while he was in fifth causes his left rear tire to puncture, he is forced to make a pit stop for tire changes, rejoining the track in sixteenth position with 10 laps remaining. He manages to cross the finish line in tenth place, just barely securing the last available point.

If some would find it easy to overtake five contenders (Chilton, Van der Garde, Gutiérrez, Bottas, and Hülkenberg) with fresh tires at the end of the race, (although its low speeds make the Monaco circuit relatively gentle on tires), let’s not forget the mishap of David Coulthard in 2001 on the Monegasque circuit. The Scot was stuck for 35 laps behind the modest Arrows of Enrique Bernoldi without finding an opening, even though he had just secured the 12th pole of his career the day before with a McLaren that was nearly four seconds faster than the Arrows!

Can the Iceman deliver a good performance this year in Montreal? Starting 12th on the grid last year due to qualifying spoiled by hydraulic problems and major difficulties making the most of the super-soft tires, he still managed to gain 4 positions in the race while his teammate Romain Grosjean finished 2nd after starting 7th. Therefore, we can predict that the taciturn member of the Lotus F1 Team has strong arguments to do well over the weekend on the grounds of the late Gilles Villeneuve, especially as qualifying 9th in a wet qualifying session, he can, with his very economical Lotus F1, which performs better in races than in qualifying, match Schumacher’s prestigious record.