“We were still too slow” despite beating Ferraris, says Raikkonen

RaceFans Round-up

Posted on

| Written by

In the round-up: Kimi Raikkonen wasn’t satisfied by leading both Ferraris home in the season finale.

What they say

Raikkonen took 12th in the final race of the year, with Charles Leclerc and Sebastian Vettel behind him:

I think here everything seemed to work as it should but we’re still a bit too slow. But we were surprisingly close to the points, it wasn’t far, I could see it pretty much all of the time. We did what we could.

[That performance] doesn’t really make any difference in the end. Obviously it was very early on very clear that it’s going to be a difficult year and that’s how it turned out to be. I think for quite a long time, the aim has been eighth in the teams championship, that’s only what we could fight for. We managed to keep it so that’s at least something.

Quotes: Dieter Rencken

Social media

Notable posts from Twitter, Instagram and more:

Advert | Become a RaceFans supporter and go ad-free

Advert | Become a RaceFans supporter and go ad-free

Comment of the day

People are getting carried away by calling for George Russell to get a Mercedes seat on the strength of his one drive for the team last weekend, says Ben:

Russell did an incredible job first time out, no doubt about that, but I think a great deal of people are getting a bit carried away by that single great performance at the simplest track layout by far this season. I also don’t understand that if Bottas got called “awful” or “terrible” how people can say Russell was that amazing. I thought myself that Russell really was outstanding this race, and to be fair on Bottas, he did outqualify Russell and was faster in the 2nd stint and could well have caught up by the end. The difference between the race performance wasn’t that huge. The team really messed it up for both drivers, but more so Bottas which made his result look a bit worse than it should have been. Russell’s race admittedly did get messed up a fair bit too, but less so by the team.

I also will add that while Russell has suddenly come from another team, had has been involved with Mercedes in testing and other things quite a few times, it’s not 100% new for him so it probably won’t have been quite as difficult as some imagined. Not tying to play down what he archived, I just don’t think there is enough evidence that Bottas isn’t more than good enough to at least have one more season alongside Hamilton.
Ben Rowe (@thegianthogweed)

Happy birthday!

Happy birthday to Dermot Farrelly, Carlo Grlj and Majed Almadani!

If you want a birthday shout-out tell us when yours is via the contact form or adding to the list here.

Author information

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...

Got a potential story, tip or enquiry? Find out more about RaceFans and contact us here.

24 comments on ““We were still too slow” despite beating Ferraris, says Raikkonen”

  1. So, will the Merc, Red Bull and Ferrari be DLCs from now on? And do i need to pay extra to play as one of the more popular drivers?

    1. EA is a meme but better EA than Take 2.

      1. I’d much rather Take Two than EA, nothing good comes from EA, also they had the F1 license and gave it up, hence no F1 games for a couple of years.

    2. Worse, both EA and Take 2 have sports games riddled with microtransaction card packs.

      You wont even be able to buy the team you want, you’ll have to spend $200+ on card packs for a chance at getting the best version of the drivers/cars to play competitively online.

      To be fair those modes are optional and they’ll both probably do a better job at a single player story line than Codemasters could manage, although those modes instead will have painfully slow progress unless you pay to unlock improved stats.

      This is assuming they follow the trend of their basketball/football/hockey games.

      1. This isn’t even only about the gamers who want to play the games, EA is world famous for being bad. Being associated with them will likely result in an image problem.
        F1 brands itself as the pinnacle of motorsport and at the cutting edge of technology. Games are technology, and F1-games were at the forefront of development, laying indispensable groundwork for how physics work in gaming far beyond driving simulations. Under the hood, Geoff Crammond’s games were as cutting edge as F1-cars.
        To go from that to EA is as big a downfall as possible in this field.

  2. What a bad COTD.
    Quoting Toto Wolff: “You mustn’t forget: he gets into the car, doesn’t fit in the cockpit and this loses him time.”

    1. Sometimes when you get too comfortable in a position you tend to sleep off. True it wasn’t the best fit, but it kept him alert. It is no guarantee he would be 2 seconds faster if the cockpit was tailored to his dimensions.

  3. Not sure what COTD is on about. How can you not want Russell on that car against Lewis? Russell wasn’t familiar with that car, even if he tested for them and is a Mercedes driver, he never raced that thing and he jumped right in, almost outqualified the regular driver (who’s only outqualified by Hamilton for less than a tenth over the whole year) and proceeded to beat him. Was Bottaa catching him? Yes, but he shouldn’t have been behind him in the first place and we don’t know if he’d have passed him. Russell wasn’t exactly slow at that point of the race.

    When a talent like that makes such a big impression, you want to watch him take on Lewis every single weekend. Bottas has had his chance and he’s hardly put Lewis under too much pressure, even if he says he did.

    1. I also don’t buy into this argument of the track being Mickey Mouse and simple. That being the case Bottas should have no excuse mastering it and being ahead of Russel. It’s actually a bad reflection on Bottas not being able to do better than Russel on a simple layout.

    2. I agree. I don’t understand why downplay the fact that a driver has jumped in to a new car which he barely fits in to.. and doesn’t even know half the steering buttons on.. but nonetheless goes on to put the quickest times in every session except for qualifying..and would have won the race on merit.

      Lewis really wouldn’t have done much better himself… so why not give credit where its due? I think Russell and Hamilton for 2021 would have been a great line up. It’s a shame that Mercedes are so fearful of their 2014-2016 experience of two competitive drivers. They’re denying the viewers of F1 the only chance of a title battle for next season.

    3. Bottas did say, Hamilton had set the car up from the previous race, so it was easy for the engineers to get Russell up to speed immediately.

    4. But Bottas WAS catching him before the team messed it up though. You can hardly fire someone for that. Nor can you really for Bottas performance this weekend.

      I think that Williams wants to keep him is an argument @fer-no65. Just as already having a contract with Bottas for next season. But maybe the most important thing is, that everybody is planning to carry over the car pretty much as is to next year. So Russel wouldn’t fit into that car either. The whole year. Being too high up, struggling to fit in, having bruises on his shoulders, knees etc. Using boots that make his feet hurt because they are too slow. Not being able to wholly commit on the brakes because he simply cannot stretch his legs far enough.

      To me, it makes far more sense to put him in a car that will actually be built to fit him in. The 2022 car, that is.

    5. The Mercedes is such a dominant car, being one of its two drivers is a privilege that I’m sure many just don’t think Bottas deserves. Imagine what drivers like Ricciardo, Russell, Sainz, Norris and Verstappen would give for that seat but year after year Bottas gets it just endlessly to sit in the no-mans-land between Hamilton and Verstappen. Of course it’s a great situation for Lewis and the team but a rather boring wasted opportunity for anyone watching.

  4. 1 race might be too little to judge Russell (I’d give him another weekend in the car).
    Though 17 races is more than enough to judge Bottas: decent in quali, but lacking in racing.

  5. > How can you not want Russell on that car against Lewis?

    Maybe because you’re not stupid?

    I keep on seeing this kind of stuff and I wonder if you guys are actually following F1 or not. Toto has said in several occasions that the rivalry between Lewis and Nico was terrible for the team and he absolutely doesn’t want to go down that road again. That alone is enough to close the matter.

    We’re all bored by Lewis supremacy, but that’s it, a team principal must be absolutely insane to put a strong opponent beside one of the best drivers in F1 history. They already have in Lewis their title contender. They need a second driver that is strong enough to bring the WCC home and weak enough to not pose a threat.

    Be sure, the minute Lewis decides to stop driving with them, George is in the car. Bottas has shown in different occasions that he’s not WC material.

    You can like it or dislike it but if you can’t understand this basic logic you’re living in a world of fantasies.

    1. @m-bagattini Wanting and believing it’s happening are two different things. I want Russell in that car, I want another Rosberg-Hamilton situation. Will it happen again? Very doubtful. But that doesn’t mean I don’t want that to happen… Don’t you think fans already know that?

      The COTD made a point about Russell not giving as good a first impression as people think, which I think it’s wrong

    2. Every day here, comments are fans fantasy.
      Either we talk seriously about F1, either we comment everything going through our minds.

      1. Well, some facts. People is bored of Hamilton I-am-the-greatest with a big mouth for personal agendas (look how fast he stopped talking about BLM, etc). For sure he’s business to Merc but no business for F1. No fans outside the Hamilton church.

  6. Solid drive again from Kimi, keeping the Ferrari’s behind. I bet next year Leclerc will see also Vettel’s Aston Martin tail lights in the distance.

  7. I would love to see Russell in the Merc next year against Hamilton. But I can understand Toto’s logic in keeping Bottas.

    What I can’t understand is Racing Point. Vettel / Stroll is such a poor lineup at a time when they find themselves in such a competitive position. It should be Perez / Russell in that team.

    1. @aussierod You do know who owns Racing Point and why don’t you? In case you missed the last couple of years, Lance Stroll’s billionaire dad bought* the team to give Lance a race seat. Lance is a fixture at that team until either he quits or daddy buys Red Bull Racing for him.

      Bitter? Me? ;-)

      * Alright, he led a consortium. Whatever.

  8. I wonder what the reaction of the teachers might’ve been after finding out that he’s become a race driver for Mclaren in 2014.

  9. Stephen Higgins
    14th December 2020, 13:48

    The handling of studios by EA has been in question for a while and I hope this is not the beginning of the end for Codemasters down the line. Hopefully they can maintain their positive rapport with fans.

  10. Time to read some FIFA 21 user reviews.

Comments are closed.