Fresh F1

The F1 World Championship leader, Kimi Räikkönen, declared he will do everything in his power to emulate Alonso’s tactics in last two seasons.

“To win you need points from every race. To have the best chance, you have to get top finishes, especially from the first races.” said Kimi.

In 2005 Alonso won three out of the first four races and in was second in one race. Last year the Spaniard won two races and finished twice in second place, out of the first four races.

Räkkönen might be forced to be on the defense already on this week’s Malaysian Grand Prix. The overheated engine is the risk that Kimi faces. At this stage, the situation is 51-49 for changing the engine before Saturday’s qualifying. The Finn is still hopeful to be able to start without a grid penalty.

“Of course the situation is a whole lot different if the engine has to be changed. It will limit our tactics, and that will make it much more difficult to be on top.”

Testing supremacy on every track

Without the worries about the engine, Ferrari is the favorite for next two races. Räikkönen had two excellent test days in last week, and set the fastest lap of the whole testing session, without pushing hard.

“This car is very good for all kinds of tracks. Especially the race race is strong. But we need to improve our pace on a single fast lap.”

The F2007 cars of Räikkönen and Massa will have the tyre advantage on their side at least in the first races. Like in Australia, Ferrari doesn’t have problems of any kind to make the two different compounds work.

“Of course there are differences between the two tires, but they feel the same as in the first race. There shouldn’t be a massive performance difference [between them].”

Source: Turun Sanomat (in Finnish).

Translation by Warwick and Wiz Kid.

~ by Wiz Kid on April 2, 2007.