quoteKimi Raikkonen: Ferrari's strongest circuits yet to come
6 Jun, 2016
Kimi Raikkonen believes the order of this season's calendar has worked against Ferrari so far and its strongest circuits will come towards the end of the year.
After showing promising pace in testing, Ferrari's championship threat has failed to materialise at the opening six races and it is already 67 points behind championship leaders Mercedes. At the last two rounds in Spain and Monaco, Ferrari was outpaced by both Mercedes and Red Bull, but Raikkonen says the shift of the Malaysian Grand Prix to the second half of the year means the SF16-H has yet to race on a track that plays to its strengths.
"Certain races that we're pretty certain will suit us better have been moved and they have been moved from the beginning to later on in the season and all the races that we knew that were difficult for us have been moved to the front," he said. "Just looking at the results doesn't always tell you the full story.
"Obviously we're not happy with where we are, we want to improve and we'll try to work on the areas we know we have to improve. But it's not easy to improve, otherwise everyone would be up there.
"We keep working and even after a difficult weekend we know we can certainly do a lot better in the next race. Until we're 1-2 in every weekend we cannot be happy, but that's our goal and hopefully we'll get there some time soon."
Ferrari won the Malaysian, Hungarian and Singapore Grands Prix last year, and although the team has yet to score a victory this season, Raikkonen is confident the car has improved significantly.
"People are saying we're not doing as well as last year but if you look just at wins, then we're not, but that doesn't really tell you the big picture. I'm sure we have a lot of a better package than last year, but other teams have improved and we're not where we want to be.
"But that's part of Formula One, we always want to improve, we want to be in a position to challenge for first place in every race. When you say it's worse than last year, that's only if you look at certain results, but I'm sure we have a lot a better package."
7 Jun 2016 Vettel and Binotto talk Circuit Gilles Villeneuve
Maranello, 7 June – Formula 1 goes oversees again for the Canadian Grand Prix, the seventh round of the season, held at the Montreal circuit. It has hosted 37 editions of the race and in 1982, the track was named in honour of local hero Gilles Villeneuve. It runs around the perimeter roads of the man-made island of Notre Dame, linking sections built purely for racing with parts used as normal roads. When compared to the previous round, this Canadian event is a far greater challenge in terms of the power units. On the topics of the track and the city, Sebastian Vettel has this to say: “Montreal is a great place. I think it is great that we are racing in Canada. I think it’s a race that all the Formula1 fans and all the drivers enjoy. It is a great circuit, not a proper racetrack. It is one of the old style ones, as I said with the walls being close, with hard braking, quite quick changes of direction with the chicanes. So, it is incredibly important to get the timing right on braking. It is a quite hard challenge for the driver, but also for the car, for the brakes and the tires, because you stop the car with a very low speed to accelerate again. So, traction is very important too.”
“The Canadian Grand Prix is one of the most exciting races of the season,” reveals Mattia Binotto, head of the Power Unit department. “There are long straights, very tight hairpins, and very slow corners, where the acceleration delivers all the power you may have. It’s a circuit where conditions may change during the race, for example with safety cars, barriers that drivers sometimes touch with their wheels, brushing the walls. It’s a circuit where the engine power is quite important, like Monza and Spa in Belgium. The main straight, which precedes the finish line, is very long: you exit from a slow hairpin and accelerate through the gears. It’s an interesting straight line for the engine men as well, because somehow it’s where you have the overtakings, the acceleration, getting the maximum speed, trying to overtake. Hybrid system is important as well, because the main straight requires to deliver all the power and make sure that in the mixed part of the circuit you are correctly recovering the energy and getting the energy storage quite full by the time you accelerate our of the hairpin and onto the main straight.”
Practice underway in the dry: Vettel 3rd, Raikkonen 5th
Friday in Montreal got off to a dry start, with clear skies replacing yesterday’s rain. It made for a generally trouble free first free practice for those taking part in the seventh round of the Formula One World Championship. Sebastian Vettel was third for Ferrari with a lap in 1.15.243, while in the other SF16-H, Kimi Raikkonen posted a 1.15.618 on the bumpy Ile Notre Dame circuit. After an installation lap on the Soft tyres, both men switched to the Supersoft compound, as they evaluated conditions on the still green track, while trying out various set-up and aero configurations. Topping the time sheet are the Mercedes duo of Lewis Hamilton and Nico Rosberg, with times of 1.14.755 and 1.15.086 respectively.
Canadian Grand Prix - Seb second fastest
10 Jun 2016
Split programmes for the two SF16-H
Sebastian Vettel ended the second free practice session for the Canadian Grand Prix with the second fastest time of 1.14.469, set on the Ultrasoft tyres. In the other Ferrari, Kimi Raikkonen did a 1.15.234, good enough for eighth place, on the same compound. Unlike his team-mate, Raikkonen spent the first part of the session doing a long run on the Soft tyres. The two men ran different fuel loads and different qualifying and race configurations on the Circuit Gilles Villeneuve, where the fastest time was posted by Lewis Hamilton, who did a 1.14.212 in the Mercedes.
quoteKimi Raikkonen struggling to make sense of his Ferrari in Montreal
10:32 PM CEST
Kimi Raikkonen said he "couldn't make any sense" of his Ferrari during Friday practice for the Canadian Grand Prix after finishing the FP2 over a second off the pace.
Ferrari's Sebastian Vettel was 0.257s off Lewis Hamilton's best time, but a DRS issue left Raikkonen a further 0.765s off his team-mate and eighth fastest overall. Raikkonen said he struggled to get to grips with his car throughout the two sessions, but is hoping to apply Friday's lessons to making the car quicker for qualifying.
"It was far from an ideal day but we just struggled a bit and couldn't make any sense of the car," he said. "We want to make the car handling better and we didn't manage to do so.
"It's one of those days when you keep changing but it doesn't work exactly as you hoped. We tried many things and we have to go through them and pick the right thing for tomorrow."
Until the second sector he had just +0.3, then he lost 0.4 in the third one to overtake Bottas and Massa. Vettel was faster today, but not of 0.6, maybe 0.2 or 0.3. Pity. But 6th is not a bad position. I just hope it won't rain...
Quote: Bradamante wrote in post #9 I just hope it won't rain...
Yeah, Kimi an rain...
QUali.jpg - Bild entfernt (keine Rechte)
quoteRäikkönen blames hairpin for struggles
21:21 – Ferrari's Kimi Räikkönen has blamed his qualifying struggles at the Circuit Gilles Villeneuve on a lack of front-end grip at the Turn 10 hairpin.
Räikkönen, who completed just one Q3 run, had to settle for sixth, behind the Mercedes pair, team-mate Sebastian Vettel and the Red Bulls.
"Since yesterday we did a good job and improved a lot the behavior of the car, but today it was still not easy to put the car where I wanted," he said.
"It was a hectic qualifying session because of the weather conditions and I was not very happy with the driving.
"I had some issues here and there, I struggled [at the hairpin] in Turn 10 all the times to make the front turn, and it was hard to put the lap together."
Räikkönen is hopeful, however, of an improved showing in the race.
"It has not been an easy weekend so far and if you finish P6 there's still work to be done, but I'm sure that for the race tomorrow the car will be better," he said.
quoteQ: You had a very close look at Lewis Hamilton’s car in park ferme…
SV: …yes, because you hardly have the chance to get so close to it. The steward told me that I cannot look so intensely and I replied: I do what I want. That probably sounded a bit arrogant, but was not intended to be. I was just curious. I am no engineer, so it was just a look of interest - and it was easier to have a look there than sneaking into the Mercedes garage! (laughs)
Canadian Grand Prix - “I struggled with the tires”
12 Jun 2016
Kimi admits result ‘not satisfying’
It hasn’t been an easy weekend, we tried to make the maximum out of that, but obviously we cannot be satisfied with the result. The behavior of the car was pretty ok in certain parts of the track, but in some others, with the cool conditions, I was struggling with the tires. When I was free to push it felt good, but then when I had to slow down for fuel saving the tires were losing temperature, they were cooling down and it was difficult to make them work again, and this went on for most of the race. Now I don’t know what to expect for the next weekend, I’ve only seen the layout of the Baku track in the simulator but I’m sure it will be a tricky circuit, it’s nice to go to a new place.
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Tue Jun 07, 2016 7:25 pm (Last edited: Tue Jun 07, 2016 7:29 pm)
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Andrea
Lets hope for a better tomorrow 
Seb could have won this race. 