Kimi Raikkonen performance

[Ennis]

Where to start. You're clinging to general idea that "points don't tell the whole story" without:
- offering proper alternative, in this case about Raikkonen's lack of performance. I'll give you an example, forget about the points, assess in your own words IMO quintessential Raikkonen at Ferrari '17 Canada race. This is mine, car: Q - close to pole, race at worst close second quickest or the quickest. Competition behind: none. What did Raikkonen do with it:
A. Q fourth lowest possible
B Lost one position the start
C. Mistake on his own during first laps - another position lost
D. Ended up behind much slower FI and RB and did nothing afterwards.
So was it the lowest performance or "race with reliability problems"?

- mentioning that points work both ways, driver's speed, skills can be well hidden when there's no competition. Exaggerated but not far from reality example: imagine every race 1-2 Merc, 2-3 Ferrari and no competition it's only 3 points difference. It's 'only" 60 points. over a season. Good example: USA GP.

- car and lack of competition. His performance this season in arguably easiest to drive and most reliable car (performance over the whole season, every type of track, every tyre combination) was outright embarrassing in every basic category: Q, race pace, start and racecraft.

Wait - what am I clinging to? I think you're arguing against a point that I'm not making.

For clarity:
I don't understand how people still rate Kimi as a driver, given every piece of evidence I see points to him being an average driver who had a rocket of a car for a couple of years and no top tier teammate which resulted in him getting a reputation elevated way beyond his talent (and his persona/image has also helped keep his 'brand' alive)
I don't believe looking at WDC points alone gives you the full story, I believe you need to look deeper than that (which can include the 'pointless graphs', checking lap times in Q & race, looking at racecraft, pressure, ahead when both finished - basically look beyond a single metric, find the balance and form your opinion from there)

[Fulcrum]

The bit about "where" Raikkonen should finish is interesting. If the concession is the Mercedes is faster, generally, and Vettel is faster than Raikkonen in general as well, then 4th is pretty much where he should be. He's currently 5th, and within spitting distance of Ricciardo, so he could end up 4th.

However, if you assess finishing performance only - i.e. remove retirements from the year's record - the finishing points standings would be:

Hamilton - 345
Vettel - 338
Bottas - 296
Ricciardo - 271
Verstappen - 250
Raikkonen - 244

This isn't very sophisticated, as it doesn't take into account points displacement from non-retiring drivers, but the point is, Raikkonen's finishing position is generally lower than both Red Bull's over the course of the year. He's benefited from fewer retirements.

Of course, he's had his fair share of bad luck too - Malaysia was a likely victory if ever there were such a thing; Singapore a podium.

Nevertheless, his overall performance this year hasn't been great. Surely next year will be his last?

[marvin78]

You could also argument that the car is very bad. This ist all guessing. Nothing more.

[turbof1]

Is anyone here capable of putting together a post based 100% on objective criteria ? That's the thing with driver topics: it is really, really hard to omit anything subjective, and so people are getting stuck in a discussions about which criteria to use. I'm glad atleast everybody is keeping their manners.

I think given what we have, Raikkonen can only be compared to his teammate. In that case, it's safe to make the statement that Vettel is better than Raikkonen in the same specific car for 3 years in a row. That's not a statement that Vettel is a better driver full stop. We can't omit characteristics from the car, and these may or may not prefer one driver above the other. So there's a question in there: Did Vettel beat Raikkonen in cars more suited to the former, or the latter?

[mertol]

First you have to prove there is such a thing like cars suited to drivers. Then if you want to only compare him vs teammates he doesn't look good either. He was beaten by such stellar names like Nick Heidfeld, David Coulthard and Felipe Massa...
A lot of viewing angles have been brought up in this thread and in every one of them he sucks.

[turbof1]

First you have to prove there is such a thing like cars suited to drivers. Then if you want to only compare him vs teammates he doesn't look good either. He was beaten by such stellar names like Nick Heidfeld, David Coulthard and Felipe Massa...
A lot of viewing angles have been brought up in this thread and in every one of them he sucks.

Although somewhat subjective, there have been more than enough indications some drivers for instance prefer oversteer, others understeer. There are other handling characteristics for sure, but I do have enough knowledge about that. I do believe there are specific types of handling that will be more favored by one driver than the other.

However, the case may well be that Vettel is driving with a car unfavorable to him and favorable towards Raikkonen. In that case, Raikkonen is very soundly beaten. But, that's pure conjecture.

What worries me, is that in 2007 he soundly beats Massa. In 2008 however, it was the other way round. I don't think there were big changes concerning driveability of the car between those 2 years. So it's very difficult to get grasp on Raikkonen's performance.

Also looking at 2012 and 2013, Raikkonen beat his teammate when downforce was extremely low at the rear compared to the front. At the end of 2013, when teams recuperated rear downforce, Grosjean was starting to get the better of him. That would suggest Raikkonen prefers oversteer, but given the 2007 and 2008 cars were front limited, this might be not true (although these cars were a lot more pitch sensitive, and we are comparing 2 different era's out of his career). A quick look on the internet does feature a mild preference for oversteer:

https://f1bias.com/2014/07/08/kimi-raik ... plained-2/

http://www.motorsportmagazine.com/opini ... -struggles

https://formulaspy.com/formula-1/formul ... ying-32242

https://www.autosport.com/performance/f ... s-compared

Again, all of these articles are also subjective. They are not necessarily credible. The autosport article seems to dig into good detail though.

The answer about Kimi could also be found in his motivation however. But for that, you'd need to find things like simulator time and such.

[mertol]

A racecar can be adjusted in a million different ways. Drivers can make it as oversteery or understeery as they want.
Kimi never beaten Massa soundly. They were so equally horrible in 2007, Ferrari couldn't pick a first driver until the end of the season.

[turbof1]

A racecar can be adjusted in a million different ways. Drivers can make it as oversteery or understeery as they want.
Kimi never beaten Massa soundly. They were so equally horrible in 2007, Ferrari couldn't pick a first driver until the end of the season.

A car is locked in oversteer or understeer once it has been conceptualized. You can change a million things with setup, but not the fundamentals. Changing setup specifically to have more understeer or oversteer also comes with general performance inpact. For instance, trying to reduce understeer by putting on more downforce is detrimental at Monza. Or a more specific example which actually happened: Kimi's car was overweight in 2014 because he was carrying extra ballast to correct the understeer.

[mertol]

It isn't locked. Nothing is locked. Find a car setup chart and see for yourself in how many ways you can change it.

[turbof1]

It isn't locked. Nothing is locked. Find a car setup chart and see for yourself in how many ways you can change it.

The amount of changes you can make is not a measurement for changing a car's aptitude for understeer or oversteer. You know what it took Ferrari, by their own admission, to get the understeer out of the car? 3 months of development. In the off season that is. I'm sorry, but that is simply locked in.

[mertol]

Where did you find such info?

[turbof1]

Where did you find such info?

https://www.autosport.com/f1/news/11869 ... -raikkonen

For the record, shifting weight in a F1 car is extremely difficult if you want to stay at the minimum weight (which ideally you want). You have a fixed weight distribution with only 0.5% leeway. Next, shifting weight like that might result in moving around internal components. Redesigning the complete internal layout is an immense task.

[mertol]

Correct me if I'm wrong but they are talking about weight distribution and it was a fixed value for all cars that year. You can still affect the balance with aerodynamics and suspension tho.
Also being gentle on the rears is understeer so they didn't cure understeer they wanted more of it.

[Ennis]

First you have to prove there is such a thing like cars suited to drivers. Then if you want to only compare him vs teammates he doesn't look good either. He was beaten by such stellar names like Nick Heidfeld, David Coulthard and Felipe Massa...
A lot of viewing angles have been brought up in this thread and in every one of them he sucks.

Although somewhat subjective, there have been more than enough indications some drivers for instance prefer oversteer, others understeer. There are other handling characteristics for sure, but I do have enough knowledge about that. I do believe there are specific types of handling that will be more favored by one driver than the other.

However, the case may well be that Vettel is driving with a car unfavorable to him and favorable towards Raikkonen. In that case, Raikkonen is very soundly beaten. But, that's pure conjecture.

What worries me, is that in 2007 he soundly beats Massa. In 2008 however, it was the other way round. I don't think there were big changes concerning driveability of the car between those 2 years. So it's very difficult to get grasp on Raikkonen's performance.

Also looking at 2012 and 2013, Raikkonen beat his teammate when downforce was extremely low at the rear compared to the front. At the end of 2013, when teams recuperated rear downforce, Grosjean was starting to get the better of him. That would suggest Raikkonen prefers oversteer, but given the 2007 and 2008 cars were front limited, this might be not true (although these cars were a lot more pitch sensitive, and we are comparing 2 different era's out of his career). A quick look on the internet does feature a mild preference for oversteer:

https://f1bias.com/2014/07/08/kimi-raik ... plained-2/

http://www.motorsportmagazine.com/opini ... -struggles

https://formulaspy.com/formula-1/formul ... ying-32242

https://www.autosport.com/performance/f ... s-compared

Again, all of these articles are also subjective. They are not necessarily credible. The autosport article seems to dig into good detail though.

The answer about Kimi could also be found in his motivation however. But for that, you'd need to find things like simulator time and such.

But I think this is part of the criticism of Kimi. If every star aligns perfectly for any driver, they can generally drive really fast. Put them in the star car (like the 2007 Ferrari), against a teammate that isn't top tier (like Massa) & with the car set up to their preference and they'll look really, really fast.

You can forgive people for discrepancies across regulations. I've always felt that the Webber v Vettel battle was slightly skewed because Vettel was finely tuned with that car's standout feature, whilst Webber couldn't get it to work. Remove the blown exhaust effect, and/or give them harder tyres and Webber wouldn't be so far behind.

But however much I like Webber as a driver, his inability to make a fast car go its fastest is a criticism on him as a driver. The best drivers don't need all the stars to align. They may have preferences which push them a tenth or so in either direction but they find the grip, they find the line, they find the braking point and they make it work. They don't have such contrasts in performance. His inability for everything to hook up for him in perfect harmony is something which shows he is not a fast driver.

[turbof1]

Correct me if I'm wrong but they are talking about weight distribution and it was a fixed value for all cars that year. You can still affect the balance with aerodynamics and suspension tho.

it's not completely fixed. 0.5% leeway. And you naturally can shift weight in the area of the front and rear, making more localized changes while keeping the same weight distribution. It's possible to make changes like these, but as you yourself realized this is difficult. Locked in a specific car concept actually. If what Arrivabene is saying is true, it takes 3 months of working day and night to get that properly done.

Also know that affecting balance with aerodynamics and suspension is not always desirable. If you for instance have to harden the suspension spring on a very bumpy track you might loose overall performance, or have to take wing off at a high downforce circuit. Basically you are compromising the car's performance for driver's performance.

Correct me if I'm wrong but they are talking about weight distribution and it was a fixed value for all cars that year. You can still affect the balance with aerodynamics and suspension tho.
Also being gentle on the rears is understeer so they didn't cure understeer they wanted more of it.

Yes, I'm scratching my head about it as well. Maybe our assumptions are wrong and he actually might prefer understeer, or it has nothing to do with under- or oversteer and it's just looking for particular feedback of the car to get the right driver response. However, the point remains that some things are locked in the fundamentals of a car. You can't change everything with set up.