Kimi Raikkonen of Lotus used his smooth, controlled driving style to get the most out of his tires and his new Lotus chassis, taking the win in the Formula One season opener, the Australian Grand Prix.
While the rest of the field needed three sets of tires, the Finnish former champion made it on only two, which gave him a 12-second lead at the finish line. Despite Raikkonen being on old tires, he still managed to set fastest lap of the race one lap from the checkered flag.
It was an amazing performance, somewhat overshadowed by the drama behind him; while the focus was on the battles between Ferrari, Red Bull, and Force India, the laconic Lotus driver quietly drove away.Raikkonen was typically low-key in the post-race interview as well. No shouting for joy from The Iceman. “I knew that I had a good car, so I had a feeling that it was going to be a good race but you have to get through the first laps and then go from there,” he told NBCSN.
“It feels good but it’s only after one race. It doesn’t really change our aim and our work for this year. Definitely we are happy with the win but there is an awful lot to still do to try to win the championship. We seemed to have a good car here and hopefully it works well in the next races also.”
When asked if he ran the race’s fastest lap at the very end just to have a bit of fun, he replied, “Fernando was catching me at some point, when I was taking it a bit more easy and there was some traffic, so I just wanted to make sure that if the rain comes or something happens we have a bit more gap. I was still taking it pretty easy.
“Like I said, the car has been very good all weekend and it was a pretty nice race, not so difficult.”
Must be nice to be able to win an F1 Grand Prix while “taking it easy.” Yet there is not the slightest hint of boastfulness about the man. He is truly a unique character.
Fernando Alonso of Ferrari finished second, with Red Bull’s Sebastian Vettel third. Ferrari’s Felipe Massa was fourth, after a fantastic drive, leading his team mate Alonso through much of the early laps. Lewis Hamilton probably feels justified by his switch to Mercedes; he finished fifth, four spots ahead of his old McLaren team mate Jenson Button in ninth.
Alonso didn’t find the race quite so relaxing as his Lotus rival. “It was not an easy race,” he said. “At the beginning traffic with Sebastian and Felipe and then traffic with Sutil, some tricky moments. But at the end, as I said, extremely happy.
“We had a very difficult start to the season two years ago and last year as well and this year is very different. We feel much more optimistic. The car is responding well, we are competitive so we have a very interesting season ahead of us.”
Sebastian Vettel, the youngest driver to win three consecutive world championships, was actually happy with third place.
“I think first of all we can be happy with today. Obviously we wanted more. Clearly when you start from pole you want to win,” he said. “I think we could see after a very good start, and a good first two or three laps, that the tires were falling apart and we couldn’t go as long as other people.
“Congratulations to Lotus and especially to Kimi, I think they did the best job today. I think we were third-quickest today and very happy to get third.”
