Kimi Raikkonen: Why Ferrari kept 'least bothered man in sport'

 

Kimi Raikkonen famously does not show a lot of emotion, but it emerged over the British Grand Prix weekend that he enjoys a bit of schadenfreude.

A little over 24 hours after it was announced that Ferrari had re-signed him for 2017, the monotone, mumbling Finn held his usual post-qualifying news conference.

"I wouldn't be here if I didn't think I can drive well," he said on the subject of his new contract. "I am very happy about it. It gives me pleasure to see disappointed people."

It was a pointed riposte to the many pundits - including BBC F1's own Allan McNish - who had suggested that Ferrari ought to look to the future when it was considering a partner for Sebastian Vettel, and not re-appoint a soon-to-be 37-year-old whose best days, they felt, were behind him.

To Raikkonen's fans - and he has perhaps more than any other F1 driver - such thoughts are anathema. To them, the Finn is the fastest man on four wheels, and he just needs a car that suits him to prove it. 

Are Raikkonen's fans right?

For anyone holding that opinion, the stats make awkward reading.

Raikkonen has not exactly made a convincing case for still being an absolutely top-level grand prix driver since he rejoined Ferrari in 2014.

In that first season, his team-mate was Spaniard Fernando Alonso, who beat him in qualifying 16 times in 19 races, was an average of 0.529 seconds a lap quicker and scored nearly three times as many points.

If you take only the races in which a comparison in qualifying was fair (ie, eliminating any at which either had a problem), it was 12-1 to Alonso at an average of 0.548secs.

Last year, Sebastian Vettel joined the team. There were 12 races at which a direct comparison was fair and the German was quicker 10 times, at an average of 0.348secs. Overall, the gap was 0.463secs. 

 

This year though, in a car more to his liking, Raikkonen has made a better case for himself. In 10 races so far, Vettel has been quicker seven times, at an average of 0.122secs.

And in the championship, Raikkonen is actually ahead by eight points - although that picture is skewed heavily by the large number of reliability problems suffered by Vettel.

What is Raikonnen's appeal?

Raikkonen's image - at least the on-track one - was forged in the early 2000s, when he established a swashbuckling reputation as an electrically fast charger at McLaren.

It was based on races such as the 2005 Japanese Grand Prix, which he won from 17th on the grid, taking the lead with a superlative move around the outside of Giancarlo Fisichella's Renault at the fast Turn One on the last lap.