RaisinChips wrote:
McLaren wasn't horribly unreliable in 2003 so that wasn't their main downfall. Of course the most conspicuous misfortune was when Kimi lost an almost sure victory at Nurburgring due to the Mercedes engine blowing up, his two other retirements where at race starts 1) Spain where started from last place and hit the back of a stalled car on the grid 2) Germany where he was wiped out in the first corner crash with Barrichello and Firman. Team mate Coulthard had 3 mechanical DNFs. At Ferrari Schumacher had 0 mechanical DNFs, and only one retirement overall when he crashed out in the rain at the Brazilian GP, whereas Barrichello had 2 mechanical DNFs and 3 collisions. McLaren's main problem was that the car was usually slow compared to Ferrari and Williams, ie. the problem was the exact opposite they had in 2005 when the car was unreliable. IMO Kimi's 2003 is better than 2005, although the results don't show it (only 1 victory and 2 poles) but he was fast and consistent in a car that over the course of the season wasn't a match for Ferrari or Williams. And he finished only 2 points off the title. Therefore, I think he was the driver of the year ahead of Schumi or Monty.
The thing is unlike Montoya and Schumacher racing each other, Raikkonen never seemed to be racing Schumacher. This is partly because of the tyres. When Ferrari brought out their delayed new car, the F2003-GA, all seemed to be well as Schumacher closed down Raikkonen's lead. But a very hot summer (record breaking) made the Bridgestones struggle while the Michelins excelled. This suddenly made it a very close fight for the championship, along with the Williams that suddenly figured out how to set up the car, and became the car to beat much of the time.
Kimi did a very good job and was very consistent, he lost 10 points in Nurburgring to engine failure but Schumacher also lost a whole load of points due to puncture in Hockenheim and bargeboards falling off in Australia, as well as being caught on the wrong side of the rain in Japan.
Kimi also benefited from the bizarre tyre ruling that lead Bridgestone to turn up to Brazil 2003 having only inters, and Michelin only wets. Whatever costs were saved were surely lost again in the crashes... . In any case Schumacher was doing a pretty good job hanging onto the McLarens, far ahead of Barrichello, before he crashed right as the safety car came out because it was raining even harder and too wet for the Bridgestone Inters.
Turns out Schumacher (even if he had trundled around behind Barrichello) would have won if he had waited for the restart in much drier conditions, while Coulthard would have had bad luck if he had had any luck at all. So it's not like all the misfortune in 2003 befell Kimi. Unlike 2005!
Brazil 2003 was a somewhat farcical example, but it reflects generally that in modern wet races, gambling on the race being stopped seems to be something of a strategy. Vergne in Malaysia was all over the place and about to be caught by a whole host of cars lead by Schumacher (ironically) who had the lap before pitted for the appropriate tyres, and then the race was stopped allowing him to not only keep the position but save a few laps on his tyres!
RaisinChips wrote:
Then 2005 was the other way round. The car was the fastest on a majority of circuits but it wasn't reliable. Kimi only had two mechanical DNFs (both from the lead) but he incurred several 10-place grid penalties due engine problems in FPs, meaning he had to start from way back and could never contest for the win in those races.
He had three mechanical failures if you count Nurburgring, and what 5 grid penalties or something... a lot. A lot of this handed points to Alonso as well, so pretty unlucky for Kimi.
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Have to agree with that. Be close between Alonso and Webber in 2010 but Alonso just edges it for me.
