One-stop strategy was worth a try – Raikkonen

2013 Indian Grand Prix

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Kimi Raikkonen said his one-stop strategy in the Indian Grand Prix was worth a try even though he fell from second to seventh at the end of the race when his tyres went off.

“We tried something different with a one stop strategy and it didn’t work,” said Raikkonen, “but we didn’t lose anything by making a late second stop over running the normal two stop strategy.”

Raikkonen said he would have had difficult making a two-stop strategy work because his brakes were giving him trouble:

“I had a brake problem for all of the race where they were overheating, and this got worse in traffic so I couldn’t overtake.”

Raikkonen will make his third start at Yas Marina this weekend, following his victory there last year. “I have had one very boring race being stuck in the middle group and then one great race fighting for the victory at the top,” he said. “I know which I prefer.”

He drove in F1’s first race at the track in 2009, which was also his last for Ferrari. “That was a boring one I can tell you,” he said. “I finished back in 12th position and there was nothing I could do about it. Those sorts of races are not the best.”

“A race like last year would be good, rather than the one I had there in 2009,” he added.

2013 Indian Grand Prix

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Keith Collantine
Lifelong motor sport fan Keith set up RaceFans in 2005 - when it was originally called F1 Fanatic. Having previously worked as a motoring...

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26 comments on “One-stop strategy was worth a try – Raikkonen”

  1. Wasn’t aware of kimi’s brake issues…..

    I thought he drove a crappy race and slate him for it……

    Sorry for misunderstanding Kimi. Awesome as always, brake issues but didn’t looked like he was having 1 by observing his lap time.

      1. Not only that, he had a fuel issue as well, so it was “race of problems for Kimi”.. haha

  2. It still seems wiser to have pitted Kimi as soon as his lap times started dropping off dramatically. They likely lost more time keeping him out so many laps on shot tires, then pitting anyway. He ended up about 15 seconds behind Hamilton. How many seconds did he lose staying out before finally pitting? Still a good drive by Kimi under adverse conditions, without even considering all the extraneous hoopla.

    1. have no idea why kimi keep having brake issues.

      Brake not working = Kers couldn’t harvest properly.

    2. @bullmello would have made no big difference. he would have ended up behind Hamilton (around lap 50 when his tires gave up) – probably with a chance overtaking him but that’s in hind-sight.

      1. If Kimi had pitted ~10 laps before the end, he would have if i remember correctly joined behind Hamilton about 2 seconds.. now I think that with some soft tyres, he could have taken back a few places finishing 5th, if lucky 4th. But i guess they didn’t have any new soft tyres left.

        1. There was a fuel issue too, which could be the reason why, they did not pull him in to a further pitstop at that point.

        2. Softs lasted about 5 laps in competitive driving – that wouldn’t help him at all at the closing laps.

          1. Romain did 15 laps

          2. Sorry Romain did 13 with a heavy car, Sutil did 19, Gutierrez did 12 and Bottas 10 laps…

  3. Thats the only way. Brake issues forced Kimi to pit early which jeopardize 1 stop but two stopper still on the card.

    However, a slow 6.7 seconds pit stop threw him to the back of the pack. Meaning, its either 1 stop or lower than 7th finisher with 2 stops.

    1. Brake issues forced Kimi to pit early which jeopardize 1 stop but two stopper still on the card.

      No: Raikkonen started on the tyres he qualified on, which meant he had to do a longer stint on the primes than Grosjean – that’s what cost him in the end.

  4. I still wonder how he managed to do best lap time despite brakes problem?

    1. Low fuel and a brand new set of softs.

      1. he had no brand new set of soft.

        That was a used set.

        1. He did it on medium tires.

    2. Last lap of the race on fresh rubber, low fuel.

    3. Time spent during the pit stop for fresh tires allowed the brakes to cool down.

    4. you still have front brakes…….switch all your brake balance to the front. Since Kimi likes oversteer i think he can handle the twitchy rear very well.

      1. Front brake balance doesn’t make the rear twitchy, it does exactly the opposite: it increases understeer dramatically.

        1. Like a cross-channel ferry. It’s bad news.

    5. He stated his brake problems were in traffic, not in clear air.
      I think a rear brake duct got damaged when he got hit in the first corner but only enough to affect the temperatures when they have to work their hardest (in dirty air).
      So as @sudd said the temps probably dropped in the pitstop and the duct was able to work well enough in clear air to keep the temps right for a fast lap.

  5. In Motegi recently, Rossi also reporting brakes problem. I also think my car’s brakes getting softer and softer. Perhaps something to do with age, cannot lie.

    1. I don’t know, but I don’t quite fall for that. Kimi is a too “direct” guy to bother lying. Plus, he had a retirement because of brake problems in recent races (Belgium). So, yeah, very probably Lotus is doing something wrong with the brakes.

  6. So Kimi likes oversteer. He can’t get that with camber settings because of the restrictions so it’s more brake bias to the rear and that ups the heat of the breaks. Kimi was changing the bias often in the onboard shots. So the tyre change from Pirelli is giving him all kinds of troubles that can only be changed by driving style?

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