Kimi Raikkonen, Alfa Romeo, Red Bull Ring, 2020

Alfa Romeo “far from where we wanted to be” – Raikkonen

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In the round-up: Kimi Raikkonen says Alfa Romeo fell well short of their pre-season expectations in the season-opening race.

What they say

Alfa Romeo were 1.1 seconds per lap slower in Austria than they had been last year, and the slowest of all 10 teams in qualifying:

Obviously the way it felt for us, that we were a bit better off in the race condition than in qualifying, in qualifying it’s putting together one lap and we haven’t made the best out of it. But for sure we also know we’re far from where we wanted to be in qualifying. I think it is generally we need to improve a bit here and there and try to find the best area for work with the car as quick as we can. We have some ideas this weekend, we’ll see if we can we can improve it and get a bit better.

You can always improve. Like I said we have some improvements in our head, what we can do purely on the set-up and how we would work on it. Obviously it’s a bit of a long time then when we did [first] running so I don’t think we maximised the potential of the car so we’ll obviously try to do that.

Quotes: Dieter Rencken

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Comment of the day

Will Sebastian Vettel still be an F1 driver next year?

He doesn’t sound like a driver that’s about to retire. Watch this space. I’d bet on Racing Point (Aston Martin). Would love to see it happen, a historic brand with a world champion driver at it’s launch.

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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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24 comments on “Alfa Romeo “far from where we wanted to be” – Raikkonen”

  1. The FIA is to investigate Valtteri Bottas and Charles Leclerc for breaking the sport’s Covid-19 protocols.

    Will that be a time penalty or a drive through.

    1. Bottas and Leclerc didn’t break sporting regulations but Covid-19 protocols. So it should not an on track penalty but health procedures which is 14 days quarantined.

      1. That was sarcasm mate..

      2. 1.209.600 s time penalty then.

  2. Imagine if some country says they won’t allow F1 to race there anymore because the drivers aren’t taking the bubble seriously. Months of careful planning from Liberty etc. and then young Charlie goes for a stroll in Monaco.

    They shouldn’t be allowed to race this weekend IMO.

    1. The reports are actually worse.

      Bottas back to Monaco for his girlfriend’s birthday when she was already with him in Austria.

      And Leclerc going to a restaurant with no mask, no distance while taking pictures with fans.

      All we need is an official protest from Horner.

      1. The last sentence nailed it! @ruliemaulana

      2. Why do you think it is under investigation?

      3. Bravo! (on Horner remark)

    2. Yes, you’re exactly right: Part of the reason F1 is allowed to race somewhere is because of their stringent health regime that ensures the safety of everyone who attends the Grands Prix. Yet now it is obvious that “stringent” only applies to the level headed majority, irresponsible drivers for top teams are free to jeopardise everyone else’s safety and all the carefully negotiated F1-Governmental agreements. What justification can F1 use to stop everyone attending the GP wanting to go visiting friends, family, tourist sites, etc at the next double header when they happily let two well known people go wandering around the world? It is obvious F1 keeps foolishly toying with going down this path leading to another reputation bruising last minute Grand Prix cancellation! Liberty Media needs to front up and explain to shareholders why it lets Formula 1 happily risk loosing million dollars of desperately needed broadcasting rights money over this.
      If people want to leave, and the team believes they can do without them, then let them go, but don’t come back, and especially don’t come back thinking that since you feel fine you’re not carrying the disease. Running to the nearest Covid-19 testing kit isn’t going to prove you weren’t infected for another week or so.
      I suspect Practice Sessions will have been done, Qualifying will have finished, the Starting Grid decided, The Race will have been finished, the new infections begun, the podium places decided, and WDC and WCC points handed out and then we’ll hear some vague admonishment of the drivers.
      The responsible thing to do would have been to send both drivers straight home and to have found replacement drivers from within those attending the GP.

  3. It is about time F1 broadcasting allow for dual screen: one with live image and another with all the data and graphics (timecharts, radio messages, telemetry).
    Not only some people would make good use of that but, at the current pace, there qull be only 2 pixels reserved for the cars.

    1. Don’t forget allowances for the pictures of the mechanics in the garages, C. Horner’s toe tapping shoes, replays of the start, more replays of the start and pics of the driver’s personal data sheet.
      Sometimes I wonder why they bother showing the cars.

      1. Don’t forget random twitter videos about a fan doing a celebration.

      2. I think the best part of the weekend is practice. It takes skill to focus on a back markers slow in lap, whilst ignoring the top drivers doing their fastest qually lap practice.

      3. We also need a 24/7 livefeed of that absolutely hilarious neeeeoow guy. And didn’t you just absolutely love the random ‘all retirements thus far’ slideshow last week?

  4. To flight back home for a 2 days makes no sense Covid or not Covid.

    1. @fer-no65 Indeed. I wouldn’t do this type of back-and-forth travelling (unless I had to) even within the same continent to avoid unnecessary extra travel, but it was their choice, so not my problem, LOL.

  5. My bet is no: Either Alfa Romeo, Haas, Williams, or nothing in F1.

    1. Unless his performances improve this year over the last (which may be a hard ask given the car Ferrari have provided) I’m not sure he’d offer enough. I thought he was uninspiring in 2018, and poor (and getting worse) in 2019, and he’s started this year very badly indeed.

      I’d rather he stopped driving in F1 entirely than end up in the teams you mentioned, and I can’t see any team looking to be at the pointy end of the midfield needing him. He could probably have plenty of value in another series like DTM or WEC.

  6. If the new graphic provides text of the radio message, can we have an end to David Croft saying “I’m gonna have to interrupt you there” only to hear next to nothing, or that he’s already talked over it with his interruption ?

  7. Cheers for COTD!

  8. Not a comment on the stroies above, just the photo (https://www.racefans.net/2020/07/05/2020-austrian-grand-prix-in-pictures/motor-racing-formula-one-world-championship-austrian-grand-prix-race-day-spielberg-austria-714/)

    What a superb photo – absolutely stunning! If Kimi’s wheel wasn’t missing he’d no doubt love to have this up on his own wall! The photography on this site is incredible, for the last few years my work and home laptop desktop backgrounds have been McLarens from this site (usually taken during Feb testing). XPB excel themselves!

  9. Pat Ruadh (@fullcoursecaution)
    10th July 2020, 10:57

    You’re right @geekzilla9000 that’s a great shot.
    My brain assumed it had been artificially coloured as I scanned over it to get to the roundup, but going back to it that’s a cracking shot and looks more like an advertising poster than a true colour photo. Shame about the wheel!

  10. Yes, I presume the bottom of the grid isn’t exactly where a team wants to be!

Comments are closed.