Kimi Räikkönen & Sebastian Vettel

Kimi Räikkönen & Sebastian Vettel

sunnuntai 9. kesäkuuta 2013

Canadian GP / Qualifying: a sensational drive from Valtteri Bottas!

It´s long after midnight in Finland when I´m writing this blog post. I have come down with a terrible cold and I feel awful. But the fact that it´s once again a GP weekend always cheers me up. And what a qualifying day this has been - filled with absolutely delightful surprises!

The conditions were tricky and cold when the qualifying got underway. The track was damp and it started to drizzle so intermediates was the only right tyre choice. Even the Q1 held a couple of surprises. One of them was the sensational drive from the Finnish Williams driver Valtteri Bottas. The tricky conditions seemed to fit him perfectly: the Finn knew exactly how to keep his FW35 between the white lines and he ended up being 4th fastest in the first session! Another surprise was that Kimi´s team-mate Grosjean was unable to make his way through in to Q2 today. The Frenchman qualified 19th, even Caterham´s Charles Pic was able to qualify ahead of Grosjean! Lotus clearly seemed to be lacking speed in the damp conditions but Kimi made it easily in to Q2 and so should have his team-mate! The dark clouds are definitely gathering around Grosjean now. Today´s qualifying performance was just another setback for him.

Q2 showed us that Williams´s Bottas wasn´t just lucky when he managed to pull out a perfect lap in Q1. The Finn was able to maintain his promising and convincing speed in the second session. Q2 was red flagged when there were only about two minutes left in the clock due to Massa´s crash which seemed to be his own fault. At the re-start everyone wanted to get out as quickly as possible and get as good track position as possible so Kimi at the wheel of his Lotus for example didn´t re-start from the fast lane of the pit exit. The Toro Rosso duo, McLaren´s Perez and Williams´s Maldonado chose this approach as well. At the closing stages of Q2 some further suprises followed: both McLarens were out of Q3 and so was Bottas´s team-mate Maldonado! Perez qualified 12th, Maldonado 13th and Perez´s team-mate Button 14th. But both Toro Rossos made it in to the top ten and so did Bottas who was once again the 4th fastest man on the slippery Gilles Villeneuve circuit!

In terms of the fight for the pole there were a couple of critical factors: first of all, you had to choose your track position carefully. If you get stuck in the traffic you can wave pole good-bye. Second, tyre management is crucial. Who gets the tyres warmed up and makes no mistakes gets the pole. And today it was Red Bull´s Sebastian Vettel who made it on pole! It´s his third pole in a row in Canada. Still, the German world champion has never won a race there! Sebastian´s driving was such a pleasure to watch today: although he told at the press conference after the qualifying that driving had been extremely difficult in those conditions, it never looked like that on TV! Sebastian seemed to control his RB9 perfectly well so you could easily get mistaken that driving an F1 car on a damp track would be easy... It obviously takes talent and talent this young German definitely has! I was soooo happy to see Sebastian snatch the pole right ahead of Hamilton who completed the first row. But P3... I couldn´t ever have imagined in my wildest dreams that Valtteri Bottas would be capable to put his Williams in P3! But that´s exactly what the skillful Finn did today. Absolutely sensational! We´re definitely going to hear a lot about this guy in the future. This didn´t happen because Williams was a good car. Everyone who has watched the first 6 races knows that FW35 isn´t such a car. Williams has been struggling during the entire season. This happened not only because of the mixed conditions but also because of Bottas´s personal and unique skills! Wow, his performance was absolutely breath-taking! Bottas beat drivers like Mercedes´s Rosberg (4th) and Red Bull´s Webber (5th) and it really takes talent to do something like that! Superb indeed!

Kimi on the other hand faced a challenging qualifying. He was only able to qualify 9th on the grid and even Vergne in his Toro Rosso was able to make his way ahead of the Iceman. Lotus was in trouble with their speed: Kimi was two seconds slower than Sebastian at the wheel of his RB9! Further setbacks occurred after the qualifying: Kimi was handed a 2-place grid penalty for his illegal re-start from outside the fast lane in Q2. Ricciardo was also handed a similar grid penalty. I hope the weather will be dry, sunny and warm tomorrow so it would benefit Lotus. Kimi is definitely a fighter who is able to turn setbacks into success so he has every chance to score good points! I´m convinced the Iceman will equal Schumacher´s 24 consecutive race finishes in the points when the Canadian GP is over!

Tomorrow is also a turning point in terms of the "Pirelli-gate": the secret tyre test run by Mercedes and Pirelli after the Spanish GP in May. Mercedes keep insisting that they didn´t benefit from the test in any way but I believe otherwise. Already at Monaco all Mercedes´s problems with their tyre management were gone! If the situation continues like that also in Canada there´s no question about the possible benefit what-so-ever! And all the secrecy around the test like Rosberg and Hamilton driving with different helmets so that they won´t be recognised... This certainly won´t help my suspicions go away at all.

I have been thinking a lot about Grosjean´s current situation with all the mistakes and setbacks. All the drivers are fit enough to succeed and win races and they all know how to drive an F1 car, there´s no doubt about that. But success isn´t only about the physical skills, it´s also about the psychological aspect. Some drivers face setbacks but they are able to get over them and turn their difficulties into huge success. Look at Sebastian for example. He faced massive setbacks in 2010 before he won his first world title. Like the Turkish GP in 2010 when Sebastian collided with his team-mate and how he made some other stupid mistakes on the track... But he wasn´t haunted by his mistakes but turned them into victories! The secret behind this may not be easy to understand. Why does Grosjean seem unable to get over his setbacks? Why is he stuck in the negative circle of following failures and mistakes? At the end of the day this charasteristic is what separates the drivers. There´s something absolutely unique about the way Sebastian copes with his disappointments and negative experiences.

With these deep thoughts it´s time to say good night. Can´t wait for all the excitement and the huge  adrenaline rush that tomorrow´s race will bring! All the very best for Sebastian, Kimi and Valtteri! When the lights go out I´m sure they will follow their dreams.

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